How can SGI stay afloat?

[AluminumStudios]

Here's a question that will hopefully get a good discussion going:

How can SGI (Silicon Graphics) stay afloat these days? If you look at the core of their desktop and mid-sized systems they don't really have much CPU power. If you look at the Spec benchmarks of the MIPS CPU's that Irix based SGI's are based off of, their computational power is really only a fractoin of modern X86 processors despite being 64 bit. I mean, they may do 2x-3x as much work per clock, but what good is that if they tap out at 600 MHz?

People say that SGI's graphics systems are so powerful, but aren't modern, high-end video systems for x86 such as the nVidia Quadro line entering the same realm as the once elusive SGI for video power? Even consumer level video cards such as the latest Radeon's and GeForces are implementing features that used to belong to the high end visual workstation.

I've been searching for a benchmark or some kind of indicator that SGI's still have value. I mean afterall they used to be cosidered these etherial, uber-powerful machines. But as I come across things like

Maya benchmarks I see P4's, Athlons, and even some P3 configurations putting them to shame for a fraction of the prices. And the price, dear lord the price of SGI's....

I think Sun is just as bad too. I have some Ultrasparc2 based systems here at work and they are really expensive and slow compared to Intel based servers. I don't have much hands-on experience with SGI so if anyone wants to explain what SGIs do that other systems can't I'd like to hear.

Another question, why does Apple get all of the credit for pioneering the idea of pretty cases, because SGI's have always looked good

Anyway, I'm not an SGI hater, I guess I just want to hear some stories from the other end of the computing world and I'm wordering if I'm missing something here.

 

[Adul]

The quality of rendering on a SGI box will be much better then what can be done on a geforce 3. Look at the latest wildcat cards. They have massive frame buffers, 96bit color rendering, and a hefty price tag.

 

[Bagheera]

I would believe SGI is just good at what it does: graphics. Benchmarks or other applications may be slow, but graphics graphics graphics!

Take MACs for example. For office applications and everyday use, it's not like it's that much faster than the PCs. But when it comes to graphics MAC processors have an upper hand. The graphic branch is just better.

BTW I have a friend who works at the Sun (she's a German)... may be I can ask her how the company is doing.

 

[Armitage]

I'm not a graphics wonk, so I can't comment on that aspect, but SGI are completely outclassed on floating point stuff cpu - per - cpu.

As an example, about 2 years ago I ported a large engineering simulation from SGI to Linux. We had a brand new SGI Octane, dual R10K CPUs. We also had a dual 700MHz PIII. The sim ran about 2.5x to 3x faster on the PIII. The PIII cost about 10% what the octane did.

So, I think SGI is fighting a losing battle for the desktop workstation market. Graphics pros may know better.

Where SGI (and Sun) are still largely untouchable is in the area of large multi-processor and very high bandwidth systems. I had access to a 128 CPU SGI for awhile. The scaling was amazing!

 

[nortexoid]

u said high-end video + quadro in the same line....that's iffy.

comment: see adul, also, see SGI workstation applications.

 

[EdipisReks]

as was said, SGI stays afloat because of great graphics performance. Apple, on the other hand, stays afloat (if you can call it that) due to a small amount of brainwashed people who will never buy anything but an Apple no matter how inferior or overexpensive the Apples are compared to the competition. i use Apples all day at work, and except for those 6 handpicked photoshop filters that Apple always benchmarks with (and which no-one uses, by the way, since everyone in the real world uses photoshop 6.01 and not 6.0 like Apple does, and PC's perform a lot better in 6.01 than they do in 6.0) they suck. Unlike Apple, SGI actually has things that is is superb in (in fact, probably about the best at). the market that deals with what SGI is superb in is quite large and lucrative. thus, SGI makes money.

--jacob

 

[jhu]

uh, last i checked, apple was in the black and sgi was in the red

 

[Diable]

EdipisReks, Apple has over 5 billion dollar in the bank and SGI is bleeding money so from the start your wrong. While there are people that buy Mac's because they like Mac's just as there's people who only buy Chevy's no matter what. There are also a lot of people who buy Mac's because the software they use has no PC equivalent. The best video editing package availible IMO is Final Cut Pro which you can't get for Windows, the same can be said for iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, Okito Composer, OS X and a fully functioning iPod

I own two very fast PC's that are great for gaming and rendering but I use my 450DP Mac a lot more then either PC.

 

[AGodspeed]

The best video editing package availible IMO is Final Cut Pro which you can't get for Windows, the same can be said for iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, Okito Composer, OS X and a fully functioning iPod

Final Cut Pro does exist on a Windows PC, I've used it before (it's the piece of crap emulated version though). It does suck in comparison to the Mac version of FCP though....

 

[rahvin]

SGI is trying to position themselves in the front end of a intel renderfarm. SGI machines have HUGE memory bandwidth. What the big shops are doing is moving their rendering to intel farms on linux machines, the workstations they put on the front of these renderfarms are still SGI's. After you generate the rendered images you then check the quality of these renderings by loading the raw rendered data into the SGI workstation,with the huge bandwidth advantage SGI shines in it's ability to check and order these images for delivery to film. They also have a strong presence in millitary applications.

 

[AluminumStudios]

I do a lot of video editing. And while I have been a pretty avid Mac hater, I admit I do want to try Final Cut Pro. It's not smooth using Premiere and AfterEffects on the same project. It's my understanding that Final Cut brings the best of both worlds together. I have to agree Macs aren't better at anything than PCs, they just have a few "killer apps" that people want.

I know Square used SGIs to design the graphics of the Final Fantasy movie then a render farm of some 1,000+ Pentium III's to actually render it. But you know, PCs are catching up with SGIs in terms of memory bandwidth, Dual Channel RDRAM and the soon to be PC1020 (or whatver number) RD RAM, PC333 DDR-RAM, nForces dual channel DDR which offers 4.1 gigs of bandwidth (although I admit the current nForces don't seem to be performing all that stellar.) I still don't see why an x86 machine couldn't do all of the things that a 4 CPU or less SGI could.

With prespect to my previous comment about the Quadro as a high end graphics chipset - It is just what came into my mind, I don't know how it compares to the highest end video cards for PCs.

 

[human2k]

"I still don't see why an x86 machine couldn't do all of the things that a 4 CPU or less SGI could"

agreed


Why not just build a dual athlon xp system and slap on a $3k wildcard GPU?

 

[jema]

I think rendering precision and memory is key. When one works with 3D modells RAM gets eaten alive and since the SGI machines can hold 4GB per CPU but the Intel based workstations gives it up at 4G total. Memory bandwith on the intel boxes might be closing in but SGI, Sun and others (think the RS/6000 machines do well in thsi area) are allready there.

Number two is IMO stability. People who work on very complex designs dont accept that things just fails for no apparent reason.

Think Toms did a test between a Fire GL card and a Quadro. The Q was fster in rendering but got whipped by the IBM card when it came to acctually working on the wireframe model.

SGI have also had 128MB video cards for quite some time, something that is only just starting to make its way into the consumer lines (not that I get what the heck its good for).

I think the PC computers need to solve some probs that have been with the system for a very long time before it can have a go at the power of the SGI machines and the ease of use of the Apple machines.

 

[AluminumStudios]

I do have to admit that closed arcitechtures like Sun and SGI are rather stable and consistent. When I say closed, I mean Sun and SGI sell their systems and OS's as a whole, they aren't assembled from as many different companies parts in as many combinations as PCs.

Being an avid techhead PC problems were never a concern of mine becasue I could always solve them. But I guess from a business point of view these "one company" computers can be desireable. I also have to admit that at one point SGI and Sun were way ahead of PCs in terms of performance. But that gap is almost gone for desktop and deskside scale systems.


Well, I guess there is a reason for them afterall! Thanks.

BTW: My $10,000 Sun Enterprise 250 with a single UltraSparc2 400MHz CPU sitting behind me cracks 771,000 RC5-64 keys/sec. My Pentium II laptop that I"m on right now is doing 1,000,000

 

[Armitage]

<< Number two is IMO stability. People who work on very complex designs dont accept that things just fails for no apparent reason. >>



I don't know if I'd give SGI any marks there. It's easily the least stable 'unix' os I've used. Way ahead of anything out of Redmond, but unstable for a unix.

 

[jema]

<< I don't know if I'd give SGI any marks there. It's easily the least stable 'unix' os I've used. Way ahead of anything out of Redmond, but unstable for a unix. >>



Depends on how you interpret the original question I guess. I did not read it as a Unix vs Unix type question.

 

[Sunner]

One reason I hear quite often(the guy next to me at work used to be in the movie biz doing effects and stuff) is the already mentioned reason that SGI makes everything from the hardware to the OS.

While IRIX isn't very high on my list of fav *NIX's, I'd take it over Windows for real work anyday.

Or for something I have alot more hands on experience with, take Sun's, SPARC's may not do very well in uni processor performance, nor in SpecINT/FP, but they scale enormously much better than x86 boxes.

And SPARC/Solaris is a WAY more stable system than x86/Windows, especially when you have a workstation that you keep pushing.