MIGLESIAS@UCIVMS.BITNET (12/06/85)
Here's the scoop on the Vax 8650:
It's basically a souped-up 8600. The cycle time is 55ns vs. 80 for
the 8600. The Vax 11/780 cycle time is 200ns, the 785 is 133ns.
An 8600 is claimed to be 4.3 times a 780, the 8650 is claimed to
be 6.0 times a 780. They are claiming 6 mips for the 8650.
There is a upgrade kit to make an 8600 into an 8650. They replace
2 CPU boards (the clock board and the memory controller board), and
swap 5 other boards ('at no extra cost') to make sure they are at the
latest FCO level and change the MS86-BA memory boards (again 'at no
extra cost') to MS86-AA boards. The upgrade takes about 30 minutes,
but they said they'd schedule 4-8 hours to run diagnostics, etc.
They also announced 16mb memory boards, allowing an 8600/8650 to
have 68mb of memory. The boards take up 2 slots, so you can get
4 16mb memory boards in and have room left over for a 4mb board,
hence the 68mb memory size.
Volume delivery of the 8650 and 16mb memory boards is targeted
for the Jan-Feb 1986 time frame. The 8600 to 8650 upgrade kit
is scheduled for delivery in April 1986.
Pricing an 8650 is easy: take the 8600 price and add $125k.
Coincidentally, the 8600 to 8650 upgrade kit is priced at $125k.
One interesting thing at the announcement: they had 3 or 4 slides
comparing Vaxes to IBM mainframes. Here's what I could scribble
down from one of the charts, comparing 8600/8650s to equivalent
IBM systems:
5 8650s clustered --> IBM 3090 (dual)
4 8650s clustered --> IBM 3084 (quad)
3 8650s clustered --> IBM 3081 (dual)
1 8650 --> IBM 3083
1 8600 --> IBM 4381-3 (dual)
They also had a slide showing how all of the Vax family can run VMS,
whereas the IBM families run different operating systems, and
not all the different hardware can run the same operating system.
Then they had a chart showing the price/performance ratio for Vaxes,
followed by one for IBM systems, followed by one with both, obviously
showing Vaxes having a better price/performance ratio.
Some interesting trivia: Since the 8600 was announced, ~1000 have
been sold, 80% of them to go into Vax clusters.