Workstation pricing, Sun vs. ISA

[Jeffrey Kegler]

As you were warned, here is a comparison of Sun and ISA pricing.
There are, necessarily, all sorts of qualifications on these number
which make a direct dollar to dollar comparison difficult, and some of
these are given after the numbers.

Basic Setup, Sun

Sun386i/150 RR150M-8-P11                           $15,490
8Mbytes, 327 Mbtye disk, 1.44 Mbyte 3.5" diskette,
documentation, UNIX, 20MHz 80386, 20MHz 80387,
19" monochrome monitor (1152x900)

Basic Setup, ISA

AST 386/C (20 MHz), 1MByte memory, 5.25" floppy      2,700
4MByte memory                                        1,600
4MByte memory                                          780
CDC Wren V hard disk, 383.3 Mbytes unformatted       2,300
DPT caching controller w/ .5 Mbyte memory              850
2Mbytes additional memory for DPT controller           850
Bell Tech (now Intel) System V, Release 3.2, w/
documentation                                          395
TCP/IP                                                 245
X Windows                                                0
20 MHz 80387                                           475
Monochrome monitor (see notes)                          95
Card for above                                          65
Bell Tech Instant Workstation board (IWS), Ethernet
port, BLIT controller                                1,495
BLIT Monitor 19" (1660x1200)                         1,295
Logitech mouse                                         100

Total                                               13,245

Add-ons, Sun vs ISA

Additional serial ports
ISA (ACE 8 port serial board)                          495
Sun, not available?

60M cartridge tape drive
ISA                                                    795
Sun (expansion chassis with tape drive)               1800

2nd 5.25" floppy drive
ISA                                                    150
Sun, not available?

Notes:

1) The 60M cartridge tape drive for a single workstation installation
is not really an option.  To quote Sun's price list: "At least one
tape driver per network is recommended (for disk backup)".

2) The ISA basic setup pricing includes a cheap monochrome monitor
with card, because the machine will not boot without it.  (Score one
for Sun).

3) Using the 386i may not be the fairest thing to Sun (though they
seem to be asking for it).  As I understand it, the 386i will not boot
DOS, and so one wonders why bother with an 80386?  A major advantage
of the ISA architecture is a ready resale market to power hungry DOS
users, so that the 386i seems to offer all the many disadvantages of
using a 386 with none of the advantages.  If you are getting a Sun,
you might as well get a nice 68000 or SPARC based box.

4) The BLIT monitor has about 2 megapixels, as opposed to one for the
Sun.

5) The ISA setup has its price substantially increased by inclusion of
a DPT caching controller.  comp.unix.i386 is currently singing the
praises of this beast, which gives an average seek time of about .5ms
(yes that was half a millisecond), offloads much of the caching
overhead from the CPU and has other nice features.  I suspect for
typical UNIX disk bound applications, this makes the ISA setup much
faster than the Sun.

6) ISA prices are street prices, that is, prices actually paid for the
stuff by me.  Sun prices are from the April 1 catalog.  Large
discounts from the Sun prices are reportedly available, even for
single purchases, while I doubt the ISA prices quoted can be much
improved upon.

6) The observant will note two very different prices for the 4 Mbyte
upgrades to the ISA machine.  They were bought a few months apart and
that accounts for the difference.  It is interesting to note that the
April 1 Sun price for 4Mbytes is $2000.  Has this gone down since
April 1?

7) I believe I could get a second disk drive (380Mbyte) for $2300.
The Sun price for an additional 327Mbyte disk is $5500.  Both prices
exclude whatever expansion units are needed.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, Independent UNIX Consultant, Algorists, Inc.
jeffrey at algor2.ALGORISTS.COM or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090