Sun Ultra 20 M2 Video Upgrade
I broke down and upgraded the video card in my Sun Ultra 20 M2 from the integrated video chipset (an ATI ES 1000) to an ASUS nVidia 7300GS video card.
While I understand the merits of integrated video, the ATI ES 1000 isn’t a particularly great integrated video chipset; it’s image quality isn’t all that great, and it’s only a 2D graphics adapter. Plus it’s not an incredibly common chipset, so it’s not supported (or supported well) by a number of operating systems.
Rather than buy a Sun-approved nVidia Quadro video card, I grabbed a PCI-Express card from my neighborhood computer store, installed it, and it just worked. Awesome! I’m kind of disappointed, though, that I needed a screwdriver to install the video card. While I could open the Ultra 20 M2 case without a screwdriver (thanks to thumbscrews), I still needed a screwdriver to secure the video card’s metal bracket to the case. C’mon, Sun, Dell figured out how to do this without screwdrivers at least five years ago!
So, if you’ve got an AMD64 Sun workstation (like the Ultra 20 M2) and are thinking of upgrading the video card, it seems that consumer PCI-Express cards will work in Sun workstations; there’s no need to buy Sun video cards.
John,
I’ve actually been considering the Sun Ultra 20 M2 because it seems to be such an interesting machine, but hardly anyone seems to be writing about it. I was wondering if you could tell me how you feel about it as a general computer.
I’m thinking of buying an Ultra 20 m2 myself. I want one with a DVD burner and a fairly good video card. Do you think I would be better off getting the base model and then swapping in the parts I want, or should I go ahead and get the top of the line configuration?
Well, it depends. What are you planning on doing with the Ultra 20? If you’re looking for a computer that runs Solaris flawlessly and you don’t want to worry about drivers, then go ahead and get the top-of-the-line configuration.
If you’re just looking for a nice computer and you’re planning on running something other than Solaris (or don’t mind hunting down drives) then get the base model and upgrade the drive and video card yourself. It’ll be a lot cheaper.
John,
I have decided to go with the base model plus a 2GB Sun memory upgrade. I know I can get a DVD burner for $35 at NewEgg, and I would rather have a NVidia 7600 than a Quadro.
Jeffrey,
We have 3 Ultra 20s at the place where I work. They are the m1 series with a Opteron 180 (dual core). They are very nice machines.
OK, I got my Ultra 20m2 in yesterday. I bought the base model with a 1 GB memory upgrade. I also bought a eVGA 7600GT and a ABit DVD+-RW.
The eVGA card worked great. The ABit’s door, however, did not fit throuth the slot in the case front.
So, the moral of this story is that if you are going to get your own DVD burner, get the Lite-on (which is what Sun uses).
Otherwise, I would highly recommend this course of action. The machine screams.