steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) (01/29/91)
I'm in the process of purchasing more memory for our 5000. I already have calls into DataRam, Standard Memories, and Camintonn. If there are any other sources, I'd apprciate hearing about them. Also, it seems that the simms for the 5000 are unique (i.e. not generic / can't be bought from the people who sell jelly-bean simms) -- can anyone confirm or deny this? steven parkes --------------------------------------- University of Illinois Coordinated Science Laboratory steven@pacific.csl.uiuc.edu -------------------------
thewalt@canuck.ce.berkeley.edu (C. Thewalt) (01/29/91)
In article <1991Jan28.223143.1867@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu> steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) writes:
I'm in the process of purchasing more memory for our 5000. I already have
calls into DataRam, Standard Memories, and Camintonn. If there are any
other sources, I'd apprciate hearing about them. Also, it seems that the
simms for the 5000 are unique (i.e. not generic / can't be bought from the
people who sell jelly-bean simms) -- can anyone confirm or deny this?
Yes they are unique. Standard quoted me $695 for 8 MB, pretty
respectable I'd say. Clearpoint wanted $1095, both had 24hr/lifetime
replacement guarantee.
I also heard hints that the next evolution of the 5000 line was going
back to the 3100 style simm, I hope it's not true...
Chris
--
Christopher Robin Thewalt These opinions are not necessarily
thewalt@ce.berkeley.edu shared by my employer...
University of California, Berkeleyrwood@wsl.dec.com (Richard Wood) (01/29/91)
Steven@uicadd.csl.uiuc.edu (Steven Parkes) writes: > > I'm in the process of purchasing more memory for our 5000. I already have > calls into DataRam, Standard Memories, and Camintonn. If there are any > other sources, I'd apprciate hearing about them. Also, it seems that the > simms for the 5000 are unique (i.e. not generic / can't be bought from the > people who sell jelly-bean simms) -- can anyone confirm or deny this? Another vendor I'm aware of is ClearPoint. Don't know access info - should be in multiple trade rags (they also do SIMMs for alot of others). ClearPoint also does 4Mbit DRAM based SIMMs, allowing the DS5000 to reach 480MB. Digital will eventually have 4Mbit DRAM SIMMs also. I don't know the cost/MB breakdown of 1Mbit vs. 4Mbit. Some of the DS5000s in our Western Research Labs run at 480MB using third-party SIMMs. ULTRIX supports up to 512MB, the 480MB ceiling is in the way the DS5000 has the TURBOchannel I/O space. Re: "generic" SIMMs. There actually isn't any such thing. The volume of PC SIMMs is high enough that many people consider them a "standard", but there is no formal or even de facto standard for workstation SIMMs. The commodity nature of PC SIMMs simply make them appear that way. ("jelly-bean" SIMMs) One of the prime factors that make fast workstations fast is a very quick memory subsystem (and a large, fast and smart cache). This often means that the memory SIMMs have to be tailored to a platform, although some commonality within a vendor's family of machines should be expected. In the case of the DS5000 SIMMs, they are ECC, not parity, while most lower-performance workstations (and all PCs, as far as I know) are parity (or worse, with some older PCs). The ECC is required due to the huge number of parts required to reach the large MB ceilings - statistics tells us that parity isn't good enough when you have that many chips - you'll be getting memory errors too often. I'd be suspicious of any workstation that uses PC SIMMs and claims to deliver very high CPU performance. Chances are good that their claims are based on trivial benchmarks that pretty much stay in the cache. Run a real application (or multi-task the small ones) and the slow memory subsystem puts quite a drag on the system. I'd be interested in seeing what you've learned from the various vendors; i.e., price, size, price/MB, 1 or 4 Mbit, warranty... -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Wood Corporate Worksystems Team Digital Equipment Corp. ========================================================================