dls@lanl.gov (Dale L Schrage) (02/09/90)
Does anyone out there have any experience using a micro-VAX 3100 Model 10 with UNIGRAPHICS (or some other) CAD???????????? At the present time we have the following system: micro-VAX-II 16 Mbyte memory RD54 system disk (2) RD53 user disks We run four MEGATEK D135 workstations. The MEGATEK's ahve graphics processors, 1 MByte of memory, and will do 400K vectors/second. All of our CAD work is currently done in 3-D wireframe and we will shortly commence extensive use of the solid modeler. The micro-VAX-II is both CPU-bound and disk I/O bound. Our local DEC sales rep has suggested a Micro-VAXX 3100 Model 10 (not a VAXSTATION 3100) with 20 Mbytes of memory plus a 600 Mbyte disk. This disk is an RZ55 (24 msec acces & 1.5 Mbytes/sec transfer rate; the existing RD's are 38 msec access and 625 KBytes/sec transsfer rate). The 3100 utilizes SCSI, not Q-bus, so there are limited options for peripherals. The 3100 is rated at 3.9 VUPS verses 0.9 VUPS for the Micro-VAX-II. It looks like I might improve both the CPU-bound as well as the I/O bound situation but neither by very much. Any experience or advice out there??????????????????????
grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) (02/09/90)
In article <43218@lanl.gov> dls@lanl.gov (Dale L Schrage) writes: > Does anyone out there have any experience using a micro-VAX 3100 > Model 10 with UNIGRAPHICS (or some other) CAD???????????? ... > At the present time we have the following system: >micro-VAX-II > 16 Mbyte memory > RD54 system disk > (2) RD53 user disks ... > The micro-VAX-II is both CPU-bound and disk I/O bound. > Our local DEC sales rep has suggested a Micro-VAXX 3100 Model 10 > (not a VAXSTATION 3100) with 20 Mbytes of memory plus a > 600 Mbyte disk. ... > The 3100 is rated at 3.9 VUPS verses 0.9 VUPS for the Micro-VAX-II. > It looks like I might improve both the CPU-bound as well > as the I/O bound situation but neither by very much. I'd put some more effort into evaluating alternatives. A lot depends on how much money you want to spend. You can probably do wonders with your MV-II by doing the MV-III upgrade and switching to a higher performance disk subsystem. The relation between your grahpics devices and the system isn't very clear, but if you need a "powerful" supporting host, you may want to look at the 3800 type systems or the 3520/40 (ignore the graphics, count VUPS). Some of these things get pretty expensive, however a lot of the difference is from perhipherals/memory/VMS licenses bundled with the configuration rather than CPU price. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing: domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com Commodore, Engineering Department phone: 215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)