Re: Apple vs IBM
On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 debian@computerdatasafe.com.au wrote:
> Then I see this:
> http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/workstations/
>
>
> RS/6000 43P Model 150
> from $8,805.00 IBM Web price*
> Monitor not included
> Power, performance and expandability to fit your budget.
> · Choice of 250 or 375MHz PowerPC 604e
> processors
> · Starting with 128MB and growing to 1GB of
> memory
> · Ultra2 SCSI disk support/SSA RAID disk support
> · Supports GXT135P and GXT4500P graphics
Hmm... That's about the same price as 4-5 years ago ;-)
> Now, 250 Mhz isn't a lot more than 200 Mhz. Sure its disk is faster, and
> its a more-nicely specced machine, but it still has basically the same
> CPU as is in my six-year-old Powermac. about the same age as my Pentium
> II-233 system.
>
> What's special about this IBM kit to justify its price?
I remember asking a similar questions a few years ago...
At that time the price of the system (minus the CPU) was reasonable, while the
(slowest variant of the) CPU costed ca. $3000, which was 4 times as much as my
LongTrail with 200 MHz 604e. It turned out the IBM `CPU' was not a plain CPU,
but the whole CPU board, with a fast 128 (or 256?) bit interface to memory and
(IIRC) room for extra CPUs.
Note that IBM had already stopped production of 604e's at that time...
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
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