Sun blade v.s. ultra -- which really is more cost-effective?

[dxw]

I am looking to spend $3000 to $4000 for a Sun workstation for my department as a classroom server(teaching Unix Admin) and probably Web server. I've been using the Intel boxes all along so don't know anything about newer one on the Sparc platform.

Just did a search on Sun's web catalog and found that for about $2500, I can get a Sun Ultra 5, 400MHz UltraSparc II, PGX24, 2MB L2 cache, w/ 256MB DRAM, 20GB EIDE, and a 48X cdrom,

while at the same price, I can get a Sun Blade 100 with 500-MHz UltraSPARC-IIe, 256-KB L2 Cache
256MB DIMM, 15GB EIDE, 12X DVD and a floppy, 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, serial and parellel ports.

Though no NIC port, floppy, or serial port are mentioned in the Ultra 5, I assume they should come with it.

So now the only differences are
1. Ultra uses 400MHz cpu v.s. Blade's 500Mhz
2. Ultra uses 2MB L2 cache v.s. Blade's much smaller 256KB
3. Ultra uses the older EDO RAM v.s. Blade's faster SDRAM
4. Ultra has 20GB HD v.s. Blade's 15GB.

I am more concerned with raw performance. I don't care much about graphices performance.

So which is the better bang for my money?

Please help!

daniel

 

[cfsalmeida]

Well the 2MB L2 of Ultra 5 provides quick data access and calculations, but the Blade 100 has an extra 100 mhz and use SDRAM in a future term you can go up to a maximum of 2GB, in Ultra 5 you are limited toa maximum of 512 MByte, , don't kwon if you need but Sun Blade also have 4 USB ports type A and 2 IEEE 1394 Firewire, both have 3 PCI slots but on Ultra 5 they are all full sized, both have a built in fast ethernet,the DVD of Blade 100 may became usefull in future as Solaris 9 will probably have a DVD distribution, both use IDE hard disks at 7200 RPM so raw performance should be very similar...,I know I don't help anything but is a hard one.

Regards,

Carlo Almeida,

 

[dxw]

Thank you, Carlos. It's tough to choose. But after reading your comment and thinking about it, I am more inclined to go for the future.

daniel

 

[johnhoke]

Just FYI...

I just got a sunblade 100...

I went with the $1000 configuration (same as above but with only 128 mb ram )

For 25 dollars i picked up a 128MB ECC PC-133 DIMM for extra RAM and installed a 60MB ATA Harddrive I had laying around and it is beautiful

I am writing from the box now and have had no problems at all with it... just waiting for the extra 512MB DIMM I just ordered

-John