whm@uunet.uu.net (Bill Mitchell) (06/12/90)
I've got some color 3/60s that I'd like to upgrade to 4/65s. The primary
use of the 4/65s would be for development of a large X-based, windowed
application. For the most part, the graphics used by the application are
very modest: a few simple graphs. We do lots of stuff with X, but we
don't do any zoom and pan, we don't have any wireframes, we don't have any
polygons, and so forth.
I think that graphics-wise, our system must be in the least demanding
class of X applications. I expressed all this to our Sun representative,
but suprisingly to me, he recommends very strongly that we go for the GX
model. Tacking $2500 onto the price of the upgrade for the GX makes the
upgrade much less attractive.
So, the question: Is a color GX-less 4/65 a good idea or a bad idea? Do
you have GX-less 4/60s or 4/65s? What sort of applications do you find
them to be adequate for? For what are they inadequate? Would you care to
hazard a comparison versus some other workstation (mono or color)?
I've briefly used a GX-less color 4/60 and it seemed entirely adequate to
me, but I'm concerned by Sun's party-line, which seems to say "don't touch
a GX-less color 4/6X".
We'd probably be using X11R4, or possibly, Open Windows. I'll post a
summary if I get any good responses.
Thanks in advance.
Bill Mitchell whm@sunquest.com
Sunquest Information Systems sunquest!whm@arizona.edu
930 N. Finance Center Dr. {arizona,uunet}!sunquest!whm
Tucson, AZ, 85710 sunquest!whm@uunet.uu.net
602-885-7700quasar@samurai-cat.ctt.bellcore.com (Laurence R. Brothers) (06/14/90)
As one who has used 4/60's with and without GX boards, I would say that
GXless IS "fast enough", but that is slower than most other machines. For
example, the 3100 benchmarks X operations much much faster than a regular
Sun color machine. The GX just blazes for some applications, and in
general speeds up performance to comparable levels.
Sun reps say that the GX is not really NEEDED for regular applications,
and they are mostly right, but it is certainly DESIRED.
Note that the 470 color machine comes by default with GX; clearly it is
somewhat embarrassing to have high end machines that are so bound by the
graphics I/O.
In general, I would have to say that the current state of Sun graphics
hardware is an embarrassment to the company. You shouldn't have to pay out
many $K to an outside vendor to get speedy graphics performance. I saw the
TC board for a short time, too, and wasn't very impressed with it.
Laurence R. Brothers (quasar@bellcore.com)
Bellcore -- Computer Technology Transfer -- Knowledge-Based Systems
These opinions are my own and not my company'slwake@awesun.west.sun.com (Larry Wake) (06/14/90)
In article <8813@brazos.Rice.edu> sunquest!whm@uunet.uu.net (Bill Mitchell) writes: > >So, the question: Is a color GX-less 4/65 a good idea or a bad idea? Do >you have GX-less 4/60s or 4/65s? What sort of applications do you find >them to be adequate for? For what are they inadequate? Would you care to >hazard a comparison versus some other workstation (mono or color)? Well, I hate to blow someone's sale, but...I have a GX-less 4/60 on my desk, upon which I'm running OW2.0 beta. Graphics performance is certainly adequate for anything I do on a day to day basis. I'd recommend at least 12 Meg of memory if you're doing lots o' color stuff. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that Sun's party line is "don't touch a GX-less system"; my own personal line is "The GX is a great product; if you can afford it, go for it." A color SS1 is good. A color SS1 GX sizzles. Mayhaps the rep's enthusiasm for the product caused him to push the GX harder than you wanted to hear about. (PS: One thing the GX improves that you might not have considered is text scrolling performance. Compare cmdtool or xterm windows on GX and GX-less systems and see if the difference is enough for you to care about.) Larry Wake, Sun Microsystems (larry.wake@west.sun.com)