So, how much are these things expected to cost? (Score 1)

Does anyone know how much these Alpha boxes will cost? I would certainly be interested in buying one, but really don't want to pay more than I would for a good PC... IMO that money would be better invested in a small Beowulf-ish system -- figure you can build a PC using generic parts (Celeron 300A, two 128 MB DIMMs, 100bt NIC, etc.) for under $800, then $4000 means a 5-node micro-cluster with a switch in the middle. For tasks that can be distributed, you're probably getting more CPU for your dollar.

The counter argument is that an Alpha workstation would have less latency. I was playing around with an Alpha 21164 at 600MHz running NT the other day... find *.dll took about 1.5 seconds to return 750 items... and the stupid Windows cursor was actually changing for each widget it went across in the explorer window (if you pay attention, it normally doesn't on an Intel, but on an Alpha you really see just how noisy the Windows UI is -- it was actually visually distracting). I can only imagine what Linux would be like on one of these....

So I guess my decision comes down to: do I need a fast workstation or something that is fast for batch jobs? And my answer is: I don't have enough money anyways, so never mind. *sigh*

Morning. Need coffee.