Sun's new UltraSPARC workstation: the Blade 1500

Roman Hauptmann writes "Here's a review of Sun's newest single-CPU workstation based on the UltraSPARC IIIi processor. According to the review, the system barely performs on the level of a P4 1.8ghz machine yet it sells for several times the price. Despite that, the Blade series still brings value to those who do visualization and imaging."

Comments

80GB Seagate drive?

[WombatDeath]

I'd hope that, for $3-4k, they could do a bit better than an 80GB (2MB cache) Seagate drive. Do "those who do visualization and imaging" really not care about the performance of their storage?

I've never yet seen a machine which skimps on its essential components justify its price tag. No surprise here.

Re:80GB Seagate drive?

[PoiBoy]

This is Sun's entry-level workstation, for people don't do heavy lifting but need to be able to work in a Solaris environment.

The Blade 2000 and Blade 2500 workstations have SCSI drives, better graphics, and much faster USparc III Cu processors with 8 MB cache, etc.

Re:Performace

[be-fan]

Maybe on sheer performance it will be beaten by x86 however for crunching big data sets the UltraSparc is just more effecient.
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If by "efficient" you mean "more instructions per clock" than yes, UltraSPARC is more efficient. But workstation people really don't care about efficiency. They care about total instructions executed per second. And x86 machines have the upper hand here.

There are lots of advantages to Sun hardware generally, but this machine doesn't seem to have those:

- Sun machines usually have high-quality SCSI disk drives. This machine has a standard PC IDE drive.
- Sun machines usually have support for many CPUs. This machine supports one.
- Sun machines usually have insane memory bandwidth. This machine has less bandwidth than a P4.
- Sun machines usually have extensive I/O capabilities. This machine has your standard 64/66 PCI slots.

Re:CPU

[nelsonal]

I think the SPARC IV is due sometime in the next few months (probably just for the big iron for 6 months or so), if I recall correctly it's largely a dual core SPARC III with more incremental improvements. There is at least speculation that SUN will offer an Opteron based workstation in addition to the already announced entry-level server. I think there is development on a SPARC V, Fujitsu seems to be having better luck with their SPAEC implementations currently. There are also rumors that a bigger partnership will develop between the two firm's development.

Re:Simplicity.

[Komi]

For my company at least, any more money spend on Sun workstations is a waste of money. I work in the CAD department of a big semiconductor company, and my group has been pushing hard to get things to switch over to Linux. At first we had the chicken/egg scenario, but we threatened to the CAD companies that either they support Linux or we switch to a different brand that will. Now almost everything we use is supported on Linux.

The problem with Sun is that it's three times more expensive and three times slower. We would spend $60k and get a whopping two new Sun servers. Then all the engineers would start throwing jobs at it and it would be dog slow again. Do you know how many Linux machines we could have bought for that much?

Primarily we need computers for raw number-crunching (big simulations) and large memory (big circuits). Linux can handle these just fine, and it's frustrating when other groups blow a load of cash on more Sun equipment.

Komi

Re:Performace

[ValourX]

Okay, I know this is feeding the trolls and such, but I knew this issue would come up.

I did ask Sun, not only for benchmarks that they used for testing, but at very least for results that they'd gotten from their SPEC benchmarks that everybody runs. I waited, re-requested and did not receive them.

The reason why SPEC ViewPerf wouldn't install was because of a problem with GCC that I couldn't figure out and couldn't get from Google. Since it wasn't an issue with Solaris 8 (well, sort of) and wasn't an issue with the hardware, I didn't publish anything that I couldn't verify personally. If you feel that's poor journalism then, quite frankly, you don't belong on the Internet.

The Blade 1500 has been for sale since November. It's completely unreasonable to assume that only I had access to it...

-Jem

Re:Performace

[ValourX]

Warm regards indeed; pleased to meet you and sorry about the troll comment.

I didn't just fall off of the silicon truck -- I've written reviews of Sun products before and I'm working on one more right now. I gave Sun several days to read the article before it was posted. This gives them a chance to correct any major mistakes that I might have made, and it also gives them a chance to respond if they feel I've been unfair. Then I wrote one last warning saying I was going to publish it if I hadn't heard back within another day.

I have a pretty good relationship with Sun, and I don't feel that the article was at all negative or unfair... and if they did, they had every opportunity to work with me to change anything biased or factually incorrect. And if they hated the review, why did they post it in their Press section? I don't think I've been unfair with them at all; it seems that they don't feel that way either.

In regards to the benchmarking tests, it was my guess that they only wanted to show that it was faster than the Blade 150 and didn't care about much else, or perhaps they didn't have anything to send me. Their primary target with the Blade 1500 is customers who already have a Blade 150. Benchmarking is just gravy anyway; I value a good review with a few pictures over a poor review with lots of graphs any day. That's what makes my site unique among review sites. Anyway, all that potential customers (readers, in other words) really want to know is that the Blade 1500 is twice as fast CPU-wise as the Blade 150 and there is no need to change software when upgrading. In the workstation market that's a tremendous value, even if it seems trivial to us desktop users.

Re:Performace

[thewiz]

There are lots of advantages to Sun hardware generally, but this machine doesn't seem to have those:

- Sun machines usually have high-quality SCSI disk drives. This machine has a standard PC IDE drive.
- Sun machines usually have support for many CPUs. This machine supports one.
- Sun machines usually have insane memory bandwidth. This machine has less bandwidth than a P4.
- Sun machines usually have extensive I/O capabilities. This machine has your standard 64/66 PCI slots.

You forgot to mention that Sun USED to manufacture their own machines. Now they have Acer Computers do it for them (literally!).