-----Original Message----- From: Simon Jude [mailto:S.Jude@uea.ac.uk]
One the subject of Nvidia graphics cards and drivers, here at work we are in the process of purchasing a new VR lab. One of the PC image generator systems we have been shown is basically a cluster of PCs that does parallel rendering and uses Nvidia GeForce 4 cards with one or two tweeks of the chips and drivers...Now for the amusing bit...for these tweeks to what are basically fairly standard PCs we have been quoted 100K for one system and 140K for a one with more rendering power. I think I am in the wrong business!!!
But how well does it compare to one of the SGI VAN (visual area network) systems, this sounds as though it is trying to compete with it. If SGI had given you a quote then you would probably be looking at just over a million quid for a similar system, possibly 400k second hand and thats without support!
Oh and as for support...we were quoted 20K per year for this system!!! ;-)
Commercial support isn't cheap though, 20k per year is less than the cost of 1 fairly well trained monkey... Again if it was SGI you would probably be paying about 10x as much (I won't dare compare SGI with monkeys, one of the two would get very offended)
Adam