Here is an email from a regular customer, regarding interest in SGI Indy, Indigo, and Indigo 2 systems in the United States around late 2001. Contact me if you want to contact the author. - Herb Johnson
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:39:29 -0400 From: Netdiablo... To: hjohnson... Subject: Re: SGI stuff available again Herbert R Johnson wrote: > > My local source seems to be producing a number of Indy, Indigo > and Indigo 2 stations.... > > Any clues as to current interest and prices? Most of the for sale > chat in the Newsgroups seems to be from overseas. Any interest > in these for yourself? Any clues about what a "bad power supply" > problem is most likely to be? I have a few Indys and Indigo 2's, > I can proabably get more. > > By the way, I picked up a Logan lathe recently. Do you know anything > about the machine tool business around Kalamazoo? > > Herb Johnson > Herb, Good to hear from you again. Market prices on some of these systems are kind of a deep subject, especially for Indigo2 machines (because they have so many options). I'll try to explain as best I can. INDY SYSTEMS A base (or very lightly loaded) Indy system (motherboard, case, and power supply, with perhaps a R4000/100 processor, light memory, and eight bit graphics) is probably worth around $50. Additions would modify price as so: 1. R4600/133, R4400/150, R4400/175 processors. Add around perhaps $25 to $45 for a system with one of these processor modules. These are about the minimum processor required for "reasonable" performance running a somewhat modern version of IRIX with some real world applications (things like Netscape, etc). 2. R4400/200 or R5000 processors (with secondary cache). Add around $50-75 for a system with one of these processor modules. The R4400/200 processor is reasonably high-end on the Indy, and provides pretty nice performance. The R5000 processors are even nicer, and make the Indy somewhat modern as SGIs go (O2 machines are newer and nicer, but more expensive as well). There is one R5000 processor module with no secondary cache (R5000PC/150) which I feel falls somewhere between categories 1 and 2, as it does not offer quite the performance of the R4400/200 (in general application performance, in my opinion) or R5000 processors with secondary cache, but it is still faster than many lower end R4400 processor modules. 3. Upgraded video cards. There were three video cards available for the Indy. The NG-8 board is the most common, and is rather undesirable, as it only offers 8 bit colour. There was a NG-24 board which was a NG-8 with additional video RAM as to support 24-bit colour, which is very nice. There was also an XZ video board, which supported 24-bit colour and some 3D acceleration. It is similar to Elan graphics on the Indigo or Indigo2. Add perhaps $30 for NG-24 graphics, $50 for XZ graphics. NOTE: Because the R5000 processor is faster at accelerating 3D graphics than the geometry engines on the XZ card, R5000 systems should contain NG-24 cards for best performance. XZ cards should primarily be used in R4x00 based systems. 4. Nifty option boards. Believe it or not, some people actually used those GIO slots every once in a while. On very rare occasions, you may find Ethernet, SCSI, FDDI, or various video cards in them. It's hard to judge the value of these. Perhaps add $25 for any Ethernet, SCSI, or FDDI cards. If you happen to come across an NTSC video-in card (Galileo Video for Indy) or a video compression card (Cosmo Compress), you might want to note that these are actually worth quite a bit. The set often seems to sell on eBay in the price range of around $200+. 5. Lots of RAM or hard disk. Gobs of RAM and large hard disk drives increase the value of the machine, of course. I'm not really going to comment on these, as you've probably got a good idea on what you think certain amounts of memory and hard drive are worth. 6. Other goodies. Other things could probably raise the value of an Indy system by small amounts, such as floptical drives (novel, but not very useful, and failure prone), IndyCams, original SGI keyboards and mice, additional drive sleds, etc. I wouldn't increase the price noticibly for them, but they help to round out a package or something. INDIGO2 SYSTEMS There are two different sorts of Indigo2 systems. The original systems were produced in Teal cases, and a base instance of this system (chassis, power supply, and motherboard) is probably worth around $50. Later systems came in a Purple chassis and supported the more modern Extreme graphics options. A base instance of one of these is probably worth around $75-100. There is a LOT of diversity in Indigo2 computers. There are two distinct types of computer, three different processor options, and probably around seven graphics options. I'll try to lay them all out here. System types: Non-IMPACT, Impact Processors: R4x00, R8000, R10000 Graphics: XL, XZ, Elan, Extreme, SolidImpact, HighImpact, MaxImpact INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: NON-IMPACT SYSTEMS Non-IMPACT Indigo2 systems come in Teal. They are older than IMPACT systems, and typically contain R4x00 or R8000 processors. These systems are only capable of taking non-IMPACT graphics options as well. INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: NON-IMPACT SYSTEMS: PROCESSOR OPTIONS There were a number of processor options available for the Indigo2. They are roughly worth the following amounts. R4000/100, R4400/100: Nothing R4600/133: Nearly nothing, perhaps $10-20 R4400/150: A little more than nothing, maybe $25 R4400/200: This is getting realistic. Perhaps $35-40 R4400/250: The top end of R4400 processors. Somewhere around $50 R8000/75: Worth next to nothing, but it's not deserved. See discussion. In my opinion, Indigo2 processors don't really get interesting until they hit around 200 MHz when it comes to R4400s. Anything below that doesn't really deliver much in the way of performance. R8000 processors are rather interesting chips. They were clocked slow, but because of the design of the chip, they get a LOT of work done for the clock speed. These were sold as thoroughbred machines for heavy floating point work (rougly 300 MFLOPS/processor) and also implement the newer MIPS IV instruction set. I consider them to fall somewhere between the R4400/200 and R4400/250 in terms of general application performance. I've got one and I love it, but most people are turned off by the belief that clock speed is everything in determining processor performance. INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: NON-IMPACT SYSTEMS: GRAPHICS OPTIONS There were lots of graphics options available for the older Indigo2 computers, as follows. XL: CPU-accelerated 24-bit graphics. Not really too interesting performance-wise, but due to their single slot design, you can stick three of them in one computer and run it with three monitors. This quirk makes them worth a little bit more than even some of the low-end accelerated options, perhaps $25. Then again, to a buyer that doesn't care about that quirk, it's probably worth nothing. XZ: 2GE accelerated 24-bit graphics. Roughly half the performance of the Elan graphics system. Two-board. Not worth much. Elan: SGI quietly replaced the XZ board with the Elan board. Same board, only they stuck 4GEs on it rather than two. Equivelent to Indigo Elan graphics. Not worth a whole lot either. Maybe $20. Extreme: Highest end non-Impact graphics card. Three boards and looks impressive. 24 bit with 8GEs. It's worth perhaps $40-50. I have Extreme graphics boards in all my Indigo2s. Because of their age, older Indigo2 graphics boards are screamingly fast at rendering non-textured solids, but due to the fact that the hardware does not support texture mapping, texture mapping either cannot be done at all, or it must be done in software. This makes older Indigo2 graphics boards not particularly good for things like playing first person games or rendering textured solids. INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: IMPACT SYSTEMS Around the 1994-5 timeframe, I believe, SGI updated the graphics options of the Indigo2 series. These are known as the IMPACT graphics options. Indigo2 computers that can accept IMPACT graphics boards are denoted by their Purple chassis. They also have a modified power supply and riser card to support the increased power consumption of the new graphics cards. INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: IMPACT SYSTEMS: PROCESSOR OPTIONS Because of their more modern lineage, IMPACT grade Indigo2 system shipped with different, and less processor options, as follows. R4400/200: Sometimes these turned up on IMPACT systems. Value carries over from the NON-IMPACT section. R4400/250: Rather common on IMPACT systems. Once again, value carries over from the NON-IMPACT section. R10000/175: The R10000 processor is very modern as MIPS processors go, and offers top-of-the-line performance. I'd say this processor module is probably worth $100 or so, perhaps a little more. R10000/195: The most powerful processor module available for the Indigo2 series of computers. Worth perhaps $150. R8000/75: These will turn up on IMPACT systems VERY rarely, and usually only with SolidImpact configurations. Value carries over from the NON-IMPACT section. INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: IMPACT SYSTEMS: GRAPHICS OPTIONS A few less graphics options were available for IMPACT ready systems, but they offer magnitudes higher performance. SolidImpact: 24-bit 3D accelerated video, roughly twice the performance of Extreme. Still no texture mapping. Worth perhaps $50. HighImpact: 24-bit 3D accelerated video, equivelent performance to SolidImpact with non-textured solids, plus adds hardware texturing support. With 1M of texture memory, worth perhaps $100, with 4M, worth perhaps $150... MaxImpact: 24-bit 3D accelerated video, twice the performance of HighImpact with non-textured solids, and also (roughly) two times the pixel fill rate and texture speed. With 2M of texture memory, worth perhaps $200, 8M, perhaps $250-300... Of course, you can stick Non-IMPACT graphics options in an IMPACT ready system, but why would you want to? INDIGO2 SYSTEMS: ALL You will want to keep in mind that there are three different motherboards for the three different types of processor. They are not interchangable. This means that an R4000 processor can only go on a R4000 motherboard, and so on. Drive sleds add lots of extra value. A hard drive sled is worth around $50 on the open market, and CD-ROM sleds are worth around $75. Indigo2 systems with not only an internal hard drive, but also internal CD-ROM, DAT, and Floptical drives are VERY nice. Lots of RAM and big hard drives also add value. A system with all the plastic parts (including the drive door) intact is worth more than systems with broken plastic parts. Nobody wants a SGI that looks like it's falling apart if they can help it. EISA and/or GIO expansion cards add different amounts of value. Galileo Video and IMPACT Video (analogue video in/out) are very nice, and probably add between $75-100 (Galileo Video) to $200-300 (IMPACT Video). FDDI cards are probably worth around $50. Phobos Fast Ethernet EISA cards are worth around $75-100. I think there may have been a CosmoCompress board for Indigo2 as well, which is probably worth around $200. Other miscellaneous things probably add little value, but they're nice, such as SGI matching keyboards and mice, the feet that allow the Indigo2 to be stood on its side as a tower, etc. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS Evaluating the price of Silicon Graphics computers is somewhat hard for me. On one hand, I believe the hardware to be of the highest caliber, and as a result, it is worth a bit to me. On the other hand, although they're nifty, things like Indigo2s and Indys are really no longer modern computers, and thus, in order to actually sell them, I wouldn't recommend charging more than $200-250 for an Indy, around the same for a non-IMPACT Indigo2, or $500 for an IMPACT Indigo2. In coming up with my costing estimates, I took into consideration my own personal preference, as well as eBay "typical going rates" and costs from a number of popular resellers. I hope this might be of some use to you. I tried to nail down most, if not all of the factors that would influence the cost of these particular computers. If you have any questions about them, feel free to ask, and once you get everything sorted out, please let me know what you've come across! Thanks and regards, Sean C.