Thought some of us might be interested to see this comparison, culled from
the Q & A for the new Ultra boxes ...

(http://sunexpress.usec.Sun.COM/sunexpress/pims_attr/Ultra_5_Workstations.Questions_and_Answers.UE.txt)

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Q. Is there anything new or different about ordering an Ultra 5
   as compared to the other members of Sun's workstation product line? 

A. Yes. Monitors and Country Kits are treated differently. With the
   exception of the special bundle part A21-UFE139J-128CG, monitors are
   not included as part of the Ultra 5 Marketing Part Numbers. A monitor
   must be ordered but is ordered as a separate line item. Orders
   without a monitor will not be accepted.  [...]

[... snip ...]

Q. How does the Ultra 5 compare in features and performance to the SPARCstation
   5 Model 170 and the new Ultra 10? 
   
A. The Ultra 5 has over twice the performance of the SPARCstation 5 and is 
   approximately 25% slower than the new Ultra 10.

                SS5 Model 170     Ultra 5           Ultra 10
                -------------     -------           --------
Processor       TurboSPARC        UltraSPARC-IIi    UltraSPARC-IIi
Clock Speed     170-MHz           270-MHz           300-MHz
External Cache  n/a               256 KB            512 KB
Max Memory      256 MB            512 MB            1 GB
I/O Expansion   3 SBus            3 PCI             4 PCI
UPA Slots       n/a               n/a               Single 100-MHz
Max Int HDD     2 x 2.1 GB        4.3 GB            2 x 4.3 GB
                Fast-SCSI         Enhanced IDE      Enhanced IDE
Networking      10 BASE-T         10/100 BASE-T     10/100 BASE-T
Form Factor     Pizza Box         Pizza Box         Mini-Tower
Graphics        SS5 S24           ATI RAGE II+DVD   ATI RAGE II+DVD
                SS5 TurboGX       3rd party PCI     Creator
                SS5 TurboGXplus                     Creator3D
                                                    Elite3D m3
                                                    
SPECint_95      3.3                9.1              11.8
SPECfp_95       2.9               10.0              12.8

[...]

Q. What do I need to know about installing memory in the Ultra 5?

A. The Ultra 5 uses PC-style 60-ns, 168-pin EDO JEDEC DRAM with ECC error 
   correction.  DIMM modules must be installed in pairs of like density.
   Memory installed as a set of four equal density DIMMs results in the best
   memory performance.  The Ultra 5 supports 32-, 64-, and 128-MB DIMM modules.
   Although the Ultra 5 uses "PC-style" memory DIMMs, no 3rd party memory
   modules have yet been qualified for use in the Ultra 5. 

Q. How many memory DIMM slots does the Ultra 5 have and how are they populated?

A. The Ultra 5 has four 168-pin DIMM slots which can accommodate up to 512 MB
   of memory.  Since DRAM must be installed in pairs, all systems are shipped
   with two of the four DIMM slots populated and two of the DIMM slots empty. 

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I'm a little disappointed.  The thing about not being able to order a "server"
(headless) configuration is particularly galling; I'm sitting here in front
of my perfectly good Sony GDM 20D10 20" Sun monitor and I have no need for a
new monitor that I don't want to pay for.  Also, the special bundle part listed
above is for a 128 Mb configuration; the 64 Mb configurations (plenty for me)
don't come with the 24x ATAPI CD-ROMs.  On the other hand, if we could only
figure out how to support the UltraSPARC chips the rest of the box looks like
it might be fairly easy to deal with from a NetBSD standpoint.

In short these are sorta like Mac G3's (heck, they even have the same
ATI RAGE II+DVD chipsets for default video option) - basically a PC in a nice
case with a different motherboard containing a different CPU.   But given that
the Ultra 5 isn't even as fast (SPECint95-wise) as even a now-lowly 233 MHz
604e Mac or a 233 MHz Pentium II box, it'll be interesting to see how this
fares now that there are boxes like the Compaq Presario 4860 on the market
for $2150 (street price) that have 333 MHz Pentium II's (> 12.5 SPECint95),
2nd-generation DVD drives, MPEG decode, etc. etc. etc.  But hey, this isn't
comp.arch so I'll stop now  :-)

	- Greg