The higher-end option: Sun’s Ultra 40

See correction below

Shortly before this week’s print edition of InfoWorld went to press, Sun told the Test Center about the Ultra 40 workstation, a dual-processor-capable version of the Ultra 20. This system, positioned as a replacement for the Sun Java Workstation W2100z, comes at a price of $2,295 for a 200-series single-core Opteron processor, 1GB of memory, an 80GB SATA hard drive, and an NVidia graphics card.

Unfortunately, not all the details of the Ultra 40 were available — Sun was unable to send me a machine to test before deadline. However, preliminary briefings indicated that although software developers remain a core audience for the Ultra 40, Sun will also target graphics-intensive users — such as those who compose 3-D animations — with new high-end video cards and coprocessors that won’t be compatible with the Ultra 20. Aside from those changes, the Ultra 40 is essentially a dual-chip-capable version of the Ultra 20.

The benefit of the Ultra 40 will be its capability of using two processors, either at purchase or as an upgrade; the Ultra 20 is limited to a single processor. By contrast, the Ultra 20’s price starts at $895, and a capable system can be outfitted for $1,395 — substantially less than the Ultra 40’s entry price. Both single-core and dual-core versions of the Ultra 40 are now shipping.

Correction: In this article, the shipping date for Sun’s Ultra 40 systems with single-core and dual-core chips chips should have been January 2006. InfoWorld regrets the error, which has been corrected.