Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (
More info?)
Alex Harrington wrote:
> I work as a sysadmin with Linux servers on x86 hardware and also have
> some experience with Sun/SPARC and Solaris.
>
> I'd also like to get a desktop for use at work (and at the same time
> get used to HPUX) and have seen a C3600 for sale at a reasonable
> price. The seller describes it as "very fast!".
>
> I'm after your opinions on this workstation - is it reliable?
Oh yes, it is. We had (and still have) bunches of c3600, c3650, c3700 and
c3750, and they rarly give any problems at all.
> Just
> how fast is it?
Depends on Your definition of "fast". The PA-8600 552MHz does 432
SPECint2000 and 433 SPECfp2000. As a comparison, an old Dell Precision 330
with P4 1.3GHz does 490 SPECint2000 and 516 SPECfp2000, and a Precision 420
with PIII 933MHz does 403 SPECint2000 and 294 SPECfp2000. That means the
c3600 is somewhere between a PIII 933MHz and a P4 1.3GHz. Not bad at all for
a 552MHz-CPU...
However, the real world performance is very application-dependend. It's
easily possible that the c3600 outperforms even faster machines on some
tasks...
> Does it make sense as a "main machine" for use coding
> PHP/Perl, admining other servers (ssh), web browsing, development
> server (Apache) etc?
Sure, it's a fine machine for this and even more. But be sure to get enough
RAM (at least 1GB) since 64Bit machines love RAM even more than Your PC. The
machine has if I remember correctly 8 memory banks, and with multiple
modules it does memory interleaving which also increases performance. So
even if in terms of later upgradeability a single 1GB module would be better
the c3600 is a bit faster with say 4x256MB.
As to gfx, if You only do 2D work get a VisualizeFXe in A-Revision (A4982A).
The FXe is the fastest 2D card for the PA-RISC machines, and the A-Version
is also a bit faster than the B-Version due to faster Memory. The FXe is
also good for light 3D work. And if You want to do heavy 3D go for an
VisualizeFX10 or FX10Pro. I'd stay away from the old generation Visualize
cards like the VsualizeEG and the FX2/4/6. They are slower than the newer
cards, consume more power, get hotter, and they have an EVC connector
instead of VGA and DVI on the newer cards (FXe has VGA, FX5/10 have
VGA+DVI).
There also is the HP FireGL-UX gfx card which is faster than the FX10Pro but
very expensive, and IMHO makes more sense in the faster C-Class machines
(c3700 and c3750)..
Also be sure to get fast disks. The c3600 has two trays for SCSI disks with
SCA connector. I'd get some fast 10krpm or 15krpm disks for it. Cooling btw
is no problem.
The CDROM in the c3600 is a plain IDE drive which You can replace with a
generic DVDROM, CD-RW or DVD-Burner if You want.
As to the OS, stay away from HP-UX 10.20. It's old and outdated and out of
support for some time now. Minimum is HP-UX 11.0 but I'd get 11i if
possible.
BTW: the best group for such questions is news:comp.sys.hp.hpux
If You don't like the CDE desktop of HP-UX and the outdated XIMIAN GNOME
version downloadable from HP You certainly can port a current version of KDE
for HP-UX. And if You do that maybe You can put the binaries on the web for
download? ;-)
Benjamin
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