Sun speeds Niagara servers

Sun Microsystems is expected to announce faster UltraSparc T1 "Niagara" servers Thursday along with a firmer launch date for higher-end "Rock"-based models.

Current T1000 and T2000 servers use 1GHz or 1.2GHz processors, but the new models' chips run at 1.4GHz. In addition, the maximum memory has been increased to 64GB from 32GB, which in combination with the faster chips mean overall performance increases 30 percent, said Fadi Azhari, director of marketing for multicore Sparc technology.

A high-end Niagara T2000 system with a 1.2GHz processor and 64GB of memory costs about $68,000, but moving to the 1.4GHz processor increases the price to $85,000, according to Sun's store.

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