Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the we-wants-it-we-do dept.
Jonathan C. Patschke writes "SGI unveiled two new graphics workhorses today, the Tezro
(an Octane2 replacement) and the much-anticipated Onyx 4. The presence of the old "bug" logo warms the cockles of my heart, even if the desktop Tezro looks much like a subwoofer."
The huge news with the new systems does not seem to be mentioned on SGIs site. They use ATI chips/cards for the graphics.... SGI has given up on doing proprietary graphics solutions it would seem.. and with good reason imnsho!
I agree... we are using SGI systems for which there simply does not exist a PC equivelent. The graphics subsystems, now an ancient six or seven years old (when did IR come out?) still outperforms, in many instances, anything available on PCs.
It's not just about raw polygon numbers, it's throughput and combining things like live video textures and so forth - things we use for live, on-air graphics that simply can't be done on any PC graphics cards we've seen, and that includes a very recent test (about a month ago) - our accountants would love for us to replace SGIs with PCs, it just won't work.
But now I'm sure we'd see the same limitations we have with PCs by using these ATI cards. So seven year old technology is still better than the new stuff (for our purposes).
-- Stupid sexy Flanders.
LANL's purchase...
by
anzha
·
· Score: 3, Informative
LANL bought an 80 processor Onyx 4. Check HPC Wire for the story.
-- Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Reason for ATI - Re:ATI !!!
by
bazik
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Reason for this change is that a InfiniteReality4 can calculate 3 millionen polygons/s, a ATI chip can do about 10 millionen polygons/s in immediate mode or 75 millionen polygons/s in display list mode.
A few notes...
by
green+pizza
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Tezro comes in both desktop and rackmount form factors. 1 - 4 MIPS R16000 processors, up to 16 GB RAM, 7 PCI-X slots from 3 busses. Based on Origin 350 architecture.
Onyx4 "supports" up to 32 graphics GPUs, but more can be added. Each pipe can drive one or two displays or up to 16 GPUs can be used together in parallel for increased performance. Onyx4 is essentially a new graphics brick to be used on Origin 300 or 3000 class host systems.
There are gobs of new SD and HD video card available for both new systems, as well as new audio card offerings. Both machines will seem to require at least IRIX 6.5.21 (the August 2003 quarterly release) to run.
Infinite Reality 4 has 1 GB of texture ram and 10 GB of frame buffer memory... so it doe have its advantages for a few specific users. But for the most part, using ATI gfx GPUs (working either independently or in parallel) makes far more sense than having SGI use the last of their resources to fight the ATI/NVIDIA 3D war.
SGI's strengths are with architecture and I/O. ATI's strenghts are in pixel and polygon pumps. Looks like a perfect union to me.
Re:So where can I buy the machine?
by
Tyler+Eaves
·
· Score: 3, Informative
No, you didn't, actually. SGI does not market to consumers or small businesses. SGI markets to corportations and institutions. The worlds where the purchase order is king.
-- TODO: Something witty here...
Re:So where can I buy the machine?
by
Dominic_Mazzoni
·
· Score: 4, Informative
All I see it "contact a sales rep" crap. T-e-l-e-p-h-o-n-e, what's that? Fill out a form so you can get back with me if I'm a good enough customer?
What are the prices?
Why can't I just order up a couple machines off their web pages?
I was going to order 3 or 4 machines for a graphics project ohwell... Sorry SGI, you lose 'cause I couldn't get pricing information for even order the machines. Guess I'll stick with Dell or Apple.
(I'm being sarcastic, but I think I made my point)
SGI lost the battle for low-end machines long ago. Nobody in their right mind is purchasing low-end SGIs unless they already have a lab full of high-end ones and simply want compatibility - in which case they already have an established relationship with SGI.
The point is that if you want to render 3-D graphics on a wall of 36 LCD displays in a 6x6 grid, fed from a 2-TB server of image data, you can't buy Dell or Apple. You can't even put together a Linux box to do that. SGI is simply the only game in town that builds machines with graphics pipes that big.
In depth analysis of the new machines
by
nurble
·
· Score: 3, Informative
can be found here. Written by the former hardware guru for discreet, it pretty much spells out what these machines are up to and how they compare to their predecessors. I'm no hardware guy, but it made decent sense to me. have at it!
When I worked at SGI (1998) everything had weird color schemes, the walls, the furniture, everything. And strange architecture too. Though the strangest set of buildings just got subleased to Google. Which I guess is about getting away from their "Star Wars" image.
Which is they rebranded in 1998 to make the company logo the letters sgi with the bottoms cut off, as if they were appearing over the horizon. (New motto: "The Solution is in Sight!") But I guess that's even more obscure then the original logo, because now they just use the three letters.
And the original logo is very obscure. It's not a bug! It's the Chrome Cube! The whole point being that you need an SGI workstation to render the damn thing. But nobody ever got that. So sad!
Re:2000th Post Troll
by
nurble
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I use flame and inferno on octane and onyx respectively, and I can say that macintoshes (though I love them dearly) come nowhere near the realtime performance of SGI machines. It's not the CPU, or even the graphics processing, really, it's the bandwidth of the system. The fact that they can now play 2k 12bit images in real time. If you're sitting in a room with a director or an ad agency, you want to hit an image and see it, not wait for the thing to load into memory so you can play it. I can run an image through a maze of plugins and modules and have a viewable render in a few seconds. Macs and PCs have made great strides in playback and graphics power, but still don't move pictures through their architecture nearly as efficiently.
Re:Tezro VS. G5
by
Alan+Partridge
·
· Score: 4, Informative
So? SGI doesn't have Photoshop, Graphic Coverter, Illustrator, Freehand, Pro Tools, Logic, Xpress, InDesign, MS Office etc etc etc
If you want applications, I think MacOS can safely hold its own against IRIX.
-- That was classic intercourse!
Re:How relevant are these boxes?
by
Dynedain
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I call BS
I do compositing using Combustion on my dual-athlon 2200 w/ 2GB RAM, and I've used it for 1080i HDTV......nowhere near realtime (try about 1:30 per frame for the output rendering). Combustion is the x86 version of the same apps from discreet (Flame) which runs on these SGI workstations in REALTIME.
-- I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Re:A very GOOD THING [TM]
by
Alan+Partridge
·
· Score: 4, Informative
700Mhz
3.2Ghz
32/7=4.57
maybe you should master your calculator before graduating to a personal computer?
-- That was classic intercourse!
Re:ATI !!! - another reason
by
BWJones
·
· Score: 3, Informative
It could be as cool as when I had my Macintosh Quadra 840av, only more so. I had three NUBUS graphics cards on that that could along with FA-18 Hornet 1.0 display both front views and side views at the same time making for a seriously impressive simulator experience almost a decade ago back in 1993. Think about it. This possibility is made somewhat possible with dual outputs of many current video cards, but think of the immersive environments that could be created.
Slashdot Mirror
The huge news with the new systems does not seem to be mentioned on SGIs site. They use ATI chips/cards for the graphics .... SGI has given up on doing proprietary graphics solutions it would seem .. and with good reason imnsho!
news.com story
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
LANL bought an 80 processor Onyx 4. Check HPC Wire for the story.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Reason for this change is that a InfiniteReality4 can calculate 3 millionen polygons/s, a ATI chip can do about 10 millionen polygons/s in immediate mode or 75 millionen polygons/s in display list mode.
More information in this article, translation here.
--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
Tezro comes in both desktop and rackmount form factors. 1 - 4 MIPS R16000 processors, up to 16 GB RAM, 7 PCI-X slots from 3 busses. Based on Origin 350 architecture.
u ly/lanl.html
Onyx4 "supports" up to 32 graphics GPUs, but more can be added. Each pipe can drive one or two displays or up to 16 GPUs can be used together in parallel for increased performance. Onyx4 is essentially a new graphics brick to be used on Origin 300 or 3000 class host systems.
SGI has issued a press release discussing a monster Onyx4 they've already sold:
http://www.sgi.com/newsroom/press_releases/2003/j
There are gobs of new SD and HD video card available for both new systems, as well as new audio card offerings. Both machines will seem to require at least IRIX 6.5.21 (the August 2003 quarterly release) to run.
Infinite Reality 4 has 1 GB of texture ram and 10 GB of frame buffer memory... so it doe have its advantages for a few specific users. But for the most part, using ATI gfx GPUs (working either independently or in parallel) makes far more sense than having SGI use the last of their resources to fight the ATI/NVIDIA 3D war.
SGI's strengths are with architecture and I/O. ATI's strenghts are in pixel and polygon pumps. Looks like a perfect union to me.
No, you didn't, actually. SGI does not market to consumers or small businesses. SGI markets to corportations and institutions. The worlds where the purchase order is king.
TODO: Something witty here...
All I see it "contact a sales rep" crap. T-e-l-e-p-h-o-n-e, what's that? Fill out a form so you can get back with me if I'm a good enough customer?
What are the prices?
Why can't I just order up a couple machines off their web pages?
I was going to order 3 or 4 machines for a graphics project ohwell... Sorry SGI, you lose 'cause I couldn't get pricing information for even order the machines. Guess I'll stick with Dell or Apple.
(I'm being sarcastic, but I think I made my point)
SGI lost the battle for low-end machines long ago. Nobody in their right mind is purchasing low-end SGIs unless they already have a lab full of high-end ones and simply want compatibility - in which case they already have an established relationship with SGI.
The point is that if you want to render 3-D graphics on a wall of 36 LCD displays in a 6x6 grid, fed from a 2-TB server of image data, you can't buy Dell or Apple. You can't even put together a Linux box to do that. SGI is simply the only game in town that builds machines with graphics pipes that big.
can be found here. Written by the former hardware guru for discreet, it pretty much spells out what these machines are up to and how they compare to their predecessors. I'm no hardware guy, but it made decent sense to me. have at it!
Which is they rebranded in 1998 to make the company logo the letters sgi with the bottoms cut off, as if they were appearing over the horizon. (New motto: "The Solution is in Sight!") But I guess that's even more obscure then the original logo, because now they just use the three letters.
And the original logo is very obscure. It's not a bug! It's the Chrome Cube! The whole point being that you need an SGI workstation to render the damn thing. But nobody ever got that. So sad!
I use flame and inferno on octane and onyx respectively, and I can say that macintoshes (though I love them dearly) come nowhere near the realtime performance of SGI machines. It's not the CPU, or even the graphics processing, really, it's the bandwidth of the system. The fact that they can now play 2k 12bit images in real time. If you're sitting in a room with a director or an ad agency, you want to hit an image and see it, not wait for the thing to load into memory so you can play it. I can run an image through a maze of plugins and modules and have a viewable render in a few seconds. Macs and PCs have made great strides in playback and graphics power, but still don't move pictures through their architecture nearly as efficiently.
So? SGI doesn't have Photoshop, Graphic Coverter, Illustrator, Freehand, Pro Tools, Logic, Xpress, InDesign, MS Office etc etc etc
If you want applications, I think MacOS can safely hold its own against IRIX.
That was classic intercourse!
I call BS
I do compositing using Combustion on my dual-athlon 2200 w/ 2GB RAM, and I've used it for 1080i HDTV......nowhere near realtime (try about 1:30 per frame for the output rendering). Combustion is the x86 version of the same apps from discreet (Flame) which runs on these SGI workstations in REALTIME.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
700Mhz
3.2Ghz
32/7=4.57
maybe you should master your calculator before graduating to a personal computer?
That was classic intercourse!
It could be as cool as when I had my Macintosh Quadra 840av, only more so. I had three NUBUS graphics cards on that that could along with FA-18 Hornet 1.0 display both front views and side views at the same time making for a seriously impressive simulator experience almost a decade ago back in 1993. Think about it. This possibility is made somewhat possible with dual outputs of many current video cards, but think of the immersive environments that could be created.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.