Silicon Graphics / SGI Vintage Stuff

Silicon Graphics computers in 1997

Low-end workstation: SGI O2 (1-CPU system with integrated 3D graphics and hardware support for texturing; UMA architecture)

Hi-end workstation: SGI Octane (1 or 2 CPUs, Impact 3D graphics cards with geometry acceleration and optional texture support)

SGI Onyx 3000 with InfiniteReality 4 (2002)

Onyx 3000 was the last visualization supercomputer with the custom SGI’s graphics sub-system: InfiniteReality 4. The whole supercomputer was built using small modules (called bricks), that were connected using very fast NUMAflex interconnects. This connection allowed all devices to work as a single ccNUMA machine, running a single instance of IRIX 6.5 (each module could touch any memory in the system).

The largest multi-rack installations could work with up to 512 MIPS R12000/R14000 CPUs and up to 1 TB of RAM. Up to 16 graphics pipelines could be connected to the system (up to two per G-Brick module). Each pipeline had 1GB of texture memory and was able to render 1300 million pixels per second (full-scene 8-subsample anti-aliased).

SGI Prism (2005)

Prism was one of the SGI’s visualization (ccNUMA) super-computers based on Itanium 2 processors. The high-end configuration (Extreme) supported up to 256 CPUs, 6.1TB of system memory and 16 graphics cards (AMD FirePro). Unlike MIPS-based systems, this was preinstalled with SGI Advanced Linux Environment.

SGI 1400 (1999)

SGI introduced many Intel x86-based systems during 1999. SGI 1400 servers supported up to four 500-MHz Pentium III Xeon processors, 4GB of ECC RAM and six SCSI hard drive bays. All fans were redundant as well as power delivery (thanks to three 400W PSUs). Unlike early SGI Visual Workstations (320, 540), these machines were fully PC compatible with BIOS and standard VGA (just a simple 2D chip from Cirrus Logic).

Whole family of SGI computers in the late 90s:

SGI O2 (1996)

SGI Octane (1997)

SGI Onyx2 Deskside (1-4 CPUs, 1996)

SGI Onyx2 Single Rack (2-8 CPUs, 1996)

SGI Visual Workstation 540 (1999)

SGI Onyx2 visualization system (introduced in 1996)