micron p60
30 messages in this thread
hi there: i was wondering if any one out there has any experiance
with the micron pentium computers?? these guys are offering an
incredible deal: p60 computer, pci mother board, pci scsi
controller, 2gig 9ms scsi hd, 64 megs, double speed mitsui cd rom,
17" 17fgx monitor, viper 2meg pci, and etc for $6800. i think this is
an incredible deal. but i have no experiance with micron (GE)
computers. i have no idea hoe reliable they are. i am planning to buy
a pentium. if any one knows any thing about micron computers and
their reliablility, please drop me a note. thank you in advance ara.
We have purchased 12 486's from them in the past 6 months and have nothing
but good things to say about them. When there was a problem, (two bad
monitors and one bad hard drive) they exchanged parts and we had them within
two days. Tech support is responsive and you can get an answer within 5
minutes. They even allowed us to swap ram configurations with them after
purchase for no upcharge.
– Phil
phillip:
thanks a lot for the info. it definetly helps me in choosing a brand. i am
almost sure that i am going to purchase their p60 unit now.
once i get it i will drop a note as to what i think about it.
thanks again.
ara
Sounds like a great price for the system. The other option that I think is a
great deal is the DEC XL pentims, which are upgradeable to AXP for a very
reasonable cost. Check over on the DEC forums for prices and configurations.
I am ready to bet money that a HUGE number of applications will be ported to NT
in the near future, including Autodesk stuff. But this is pure conjecture, I'm
just gambling on a hunch. The DEC is a good deal no matter how you slice it.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
jhon:
at the risk of sounding like an idiot i am going to ask you the following
anyway.
what do you mean by upgradeable to to AXP?
also i cant wait for NT stuff to come out.
i have also read an article in the windows latest issue that the combination of
dos 6.2 and windows 3.11 for workgoups offers an amazing 300% performance gain!
now thats good and is availible today for our windows app.
also windows 4.0 chicago is right around the corrner which also replaces dos
and works in 100% 32bit mode. it is supposed to be very simmilar to NT and will
run all NT,Dos,Windows apps.
take care
ara
The AXP is a chip (CSIC?) by Digital Equipment Corporation that comes
in several extremely fast flavors. The current one is the 150
(150mhz), and it also has a robust specFP, but I can't remember the
number. It's definitely faster than the Pentium, and is considered a
workstation.
The upgrade will work because the CPU in the DEC XL machines is on a
special daughter card that can be removed and replaced with the
upgreade. So you've got the pentium for now, and when the right
software gets ported to the much faster Alpha chip, then you'll just
swap cards for a nominal fee (it's pretty reasonable, but I can't
remember the cost. Check at the DEC forum), and have a workstation.
The DEC's also have a PCI fast SCSI II controller built in that is
supposed to be quite good.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
jhon: following your suggestion i loged in DEC and i also called
them today. the problem with DEC XL units are thier price. a
compatible system to the micron p60, 64mmegs,1 meg scsi,scsi2
controler, viper pci which sells for $5500 deliverd, was priced at
$9500 at DEC. the AXP chip sounds very exciting, but that upgrade is
going to add another estimated $1500 to $2000 to the system price
totaling to about $11000 at best. now at this price i can own two
micron p60 units configured as above, networked for r3. i would
realy like to know your opinion as to which option will offer me more
productivity; two micron p60 networked for r3 or one DEC XL AXP as a
single unit at 150mhz??!! please let me know what you think also if
any one else can drop me a note on this it will be nice. thanks in
advance ara
PMJI I've been running on an 150 Mhz AXP since August, I compiled
some ray tracers on it (POVRay and Polyray) and have found the AXP to
be between 2.4 and 3.5 times the speed of a 486/66 for these
applications.
Carrera (714)-707-5051 has a 200 Mhz version (32 meg/500 meg SCSI, ATI
PCI, Ethernet, CD, KB, Mouse, no monitor) for $7K. I should be
receiving one in a few weeks. This ones based on the 21064, a lower
performance 21066 version is in the $4K range.
They all run under NT, the rep said 3DS runs faster on these boxes
than a Pentium, (what do you think he would say :)). I thought there
were memory problems running PharLap stuff under NT (anybody know for
sure?), in any case I'd love to get a copy of 3DSr3 compiler
specifically for the AXP. I bet it would cook.
Jeff,
I cannot believe the amount of confusion being caused by these RISC vendors
(such as DEC). There is no way their AXP, even at 200 MHz, can run Intel
binaries faster than a Pentium at 60 MHz.
A 60 MHz Pentium is 1.8 to 2.5 times faster than a 486DX2/66. If the 150 MHz
AXP is between 2.4 and 3.5 times faster than the 486 when running native AXP
binaries, then it will be only 2.4/1.8 to 3.5/2.5 (1.33 to 1.4) times faster
than the Pentium. There is no way this 1.33 to 1.4 advantage when running
native binaries can make it run even as fast as the Pentium when emulating
Intel instructions.
For now, I think AXP and MIPS NT boxes are for people running mainstream office
apps, apps that have been ported to the particular RISC cpu, or custom software
that has been ported.
Bailey
jeff:
thanks for the info. i am amaized at how helpful everyone has been and is. i
thank you all.
i will contact carera as you suggest.
if you find out any thing more about 3ds3 and NT please let me know.
thanks a lot
take care
ara
Jeff,
Were you on the forum about a week ago when I was ballyhooed by the DEC
marketing claims? Go back and look at that thread!
As far as 3DS running faster on an Alpha, NOT! <BG> As 3DS, AutoCAD (DOS),
AutoCAD (Windows), are INTEL SPECIFIC software programs and will NOT run on the
Alpha!
Chuck
Chuck,
> a week ago when I was ballyhooed by the DEC marketing claims?
Sorry, my mail reader purges after 5 days, this weekend alone gave me over 400
messages. Info flood. What did they claim?
> As far as 3DS running faster on an Alpha, NOT! <BG>
I realize that. Emulation always bites. But since 3DS was written in C (I
assume), an AXP specific version could be created simply by running the code
through an optimizing AXP compiler. There would probably be some porting
problems, but my experience dragging various ray tracers from Intel over to
Alpha haven't been that bad. Actually I was surprised how similar both
platforms were.
I debated long and hard before deciding to go with the Alpha. I can get bare
bones 486/66's now for about $1K each. A Pentium being 2x speed and 3X price
just doesn't cut it. Believe me, an Alpha being 3.5X the speed (the 200 Mhz
anyway) and 7X the price was no better.
The hidden cost with these Intel boxes was stocking them all with sufficient
memory and adding network cards and software to them. There's quite an economy
going with one fast box. It's also quite a rush.
What will really blow off all our doors will be when SMP systems finally hit
the streets. Personally I'd opt for a Cray T3D but I haven't got a spare $7
mil lying about <BBG>.
Jeff
Jeff,
You see, it is this long sad story! <BG> Seriously, we were marketing
to a group that qorks woth some MAJOR Excel spreadsheets (up to
15MB). We were out there with a demo Novell network (yes, a demo
network, they are a VERY good client!) and 3 Pentium machines. We had
taken their summation time on one of these monsters from 24 Minutes
using Excel on a MAC to under 5 minutes on a Pentium. In walks DEC
with the Alpha claiming that it would "blow the doors off any
pentium". No mention of "native" apps or "recompilitions". Well we
load Excel on the Alpha, and boom, MAC times again! Then, and only
then, did they start crying the "it's not optimized for our hardware"
song.
There is a happy ending though, as Friday this client ordered 26
Pentium boxes complete with 20" monitors, 1600 x 1200 video cards,
etc. etc.!!!!!!! (as a said, they are a VERY good client!)
>> an AXP specific version could be created simply by running the code
through an optimizing AXP compiler <<
Let me preface this reply by stating that I do not claim to be a programmer!
But, from my un-experienced point of view, I would expect that the problem
would be the user interface, as it seems to be pretty tied into the product!
Chuck
The Micron you've found is, definitely, cheaper than the DEC. I'm not
sure, however, what kind of quote they gave you. The DECxl 560 I got
follows your description (72Meg/1Gig/CD/16"Monitor/Viper PCI) and I
later (today, finally) added another 2Gig drive (3G total). The whole
shebang ended up around $9k.
Based on what I had found, this is around $1.5k more than if I had put
the thing together myself. I decided that amount was fair enough to
have a top of the line system with just a phone call away from
"warranted" service as opposed to having to scream at some poor guy
at a mail order computer shop about a faulty piece of equipment.
The AXP option is, for me, a big plus as I do develop in the NT
platform (1 Gig for DOS and 2 for NT in the above equation). As I can
just pop these CPU's in and out, I have a hard disk dedicated to NT
and another to DOS. I can see both from either CPU (albeit I won't be
running much of my DOS stuff with the AXP).
If you don't use NT "now", I would consider the Micron provided you
get all the warranties. By the time you have a need for an Alpha
chip, I'm sure it will be cheaper and a second "Pentium" is never
"too much" in a networking environment.
gus:
great point.
what i would like to know is; if i get a micron p60 today and later on i get an
Axp unit in addition; would they be compatible for networking
3ds3. basicly is a regular pentum networkable with an AXP system, assuming one
runs dos and one NT or both running NT.
this will give me a very good idea about what direction to take.
again thanks for all the input by everyone out there. you guys have been realy
helpful.
thanks
ara
As far as network goes, you can hook up anything to anything. What you are
asking, though, is if you will be able to use 3DS' networking features in this
scenario. 3DS will use the AXP as a file server just fine. It won't, however,
run there as the AXP can't handle 386/486/586 protected mode emulation.
As I said, if you don't use NT today, just get two Microns and you're going to
be in fat city for a good while. When the world turns NT (good grief), you will
still have two very decent machines and money to buy two dozen AXP's!
gus:
hey 2 dozen AXP dont sound bad to me. if i can do that, then i promiss, you
will have one dozen of them.
evaluating all the info i got, i am convinsed that the micron is the way to go.
also micron is comming up with their p66 unit in a few weeks for only 2hundred
more.
thanks for all the info
ara.
Ara,
3DS cannot run under NT now, much less on an AXP machine.
Even if it did run on an AXP machine, the overhead from emulation would make it
run slower than on a Pentium.
If you are primarily a 3DS user, then definitely go with the Pentium(s).
Bailey
bailey:
i am convinced that pentum is the way to go.
my problem is should i invest more in a DEC XL upgradeable to an AXP now; or go
with the cheaper micron?!
thanks
take care
ara
Bailey, for me the argument is forward looking, and I'm _speculating_ on wether
Acad and 3DS may be ported to NT. In that case it would be great to have an
AXP or two in the farm. I think the purpose of NT is to be a multi-platform
networkable OS, but I really don't know a whole lot about it.
I think NT will become really interesting when and if MS provides
OpenGL for it.
Even if 3ds is ported to NT, it would still need to be recompiled for the AXP.
Along with every other chip type if it's to be run on computers with that chip
type. NT supplies the interface to the hardware, the actual 3ds code still
needs to be binary for that CPU.
I realize this, but I'm quite sure ACAD will be (is already ?) ported to the
AXP, considering it runs on just about every other workstation there is.
Perhaps, hopefully, 3DS will be, too.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
bailey:
yap, thats what i am going to do. i am waiting until micron comes out with
their p66 unit in a few weeks and then it is a go.
thanks for everything
ara
A network will usually provide better performance, I would think. But I
thought you already had a computer, so the DEC or Micron or whatever would be
another computer in the farm.
I've got three computers now, and don't plan on getting rid of them whether I
get a Pentium, Alph, SGI, or whatever. There's always room for more, and one
more is better than one less <g>.
What configuration were you looking at to get the $9500 price? That seems a
little high compared to what I've heard. How much memory are you getting?
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
john:
i presently own a 486 dx2 66 with 32 megs. i am selling this computer to a
friend. and i am going to use the money towards purchase of the pentum.
from all the info i have from you guys so far, it seems that the most logiucal
thing to do (for me) is to buy the micron p66 in a few weeks when it comes out.
then later this year when the AXP sytem prices have droped lower i will add an
axp system or an axp-upgradeable system to the set up so that when NT 3ds comes
out i can run both networked together.
as far as the price of the DEC XL the following is the configuration:
pentum 66, 64megs, 1.2 gig maxtor scsi, scsi 2 pci, 3.5 and 5.25 floopy, viper
pci, key board, mouse, windows and dos.
the above system was priced at aprox $9500. and the speculated price of the AXP
150 upgrade is $1500 to $2000.
thanks for your input.
ara
How much are you paying for the Micron, and what exactly is it configured with?
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
jhon: the micron p60 as configured below is $5500 delivered:
pentium 60, 64megs, 1.2gig scsi maxtor 9ms, scsi 2 pci, viper pci,
3.5/5.25 floopies, 256k cache, paradox software, windows, dos. since
micron is made by GE and GE is a manufacturer of chips, these guys
are able to give you a lot of memory for a very low price. according
to my research the package is unbeatable, but the main differance
comes from the memory price. a lot of companies can offer a p60 pci
base system for the same price as micron, but when you add the memory
no one can even come close. also i have heard a lot of good things
about micron. they are comming up with a p66 unit in a few weeks.
this will cost an additional $200. also if you by the p60in the next
few weeks, within the 30 day money back guaranty period you can
upgrade to a p66 fo $200. i think this is hell of a deal take care
ara
Ara – I thought David Cohn of CADalyst would have jumped in by now,
but he hasn't… he has a Micron Pentium on eval for the magazine,
and he's been raving about it on the ACAD Forum. If you want to drop
him a line, his CIS number is 73417,167.
dave: thats great. i will drop him a note now. thanks for the great
ref. take care ara