Date: 27-Nov-2009   URL: www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2000/faqs.xml

Frequently Asked Questions

No Longer Orderable
The Sun Blade 2000 Workstation has been retired and is no longer orderable.

General Questions

1.
Q:
What is the difference between Sun Blade 1000 systems and Sun Blade 2000 systems?
A:

There are several differences, including the 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC III Cu processor-based CPU with prefetch enabled, larger capacity hard disk drive, and the Solaris 8 Operating System (2/02) or later is pre-installed.

One of the new Sun Blade 2000 configurations will include a SunPCi IIpro coprocessing card in the system, thereby providing developers with a dual operating/development environment.

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2.
Q:
Can I mix the 900 MHz and 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC III Cu CPU modules with each other or with the 900 MHz UltraSPARC III modules?
A:
No. The UltraSPARC III Cu modules do not mix with any other modules or other speeds. In order to increase the performance of the modules, Sun decided to sacrifice a little bit of the flexibility that is provided when you can mix CPUs of different speeds.

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3.
Q:
Is there a difference in performance between a new 900 MHz Sun Blade 2000 system and a Sun Blade 1000 system that uses the same 900 MHz UltraSPARC III Cu processor-based CPU module?
A:
Yes. The Sun Blade 2000 systems have been optimized for maximum performance and therefore a Sun Blade 2000 system will outperform a Sun Blade 1000 system with the same CPU. The improved performance is a result of changes made in the Sun Blade 2000 system motherboard as well as the improved memory bandwidth.

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4.
Q:
How does the new UltraSPARC III Cu processor get such a considerable speed enhancement over the previous UltraSPARC III processor running at 900 MHz?
A:

The Sun engineering team made several significant improvements to the CPU module, including turning on Prefetch and enhancing the cache performance. These chip changes resulted in an 8-15% boost over the expected CPU speed bump.

In addition, Sun has made several optimizations to its Sun Forte compiler to take advantage of some of the more advanced architectural features of the CPU. These optimizations have increased the performance by 50% in some applications. The amount of increase seen depends greatly on the application and the data set.

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This page is located at: http://sun.com/desktop/workstation/sunblade2000/faqs.xml

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