Re:I agree... somewhat (Score 2, Insightful)

Good points, well made.

As an aside, I would say that you can buy 2nd hand Octanes, phone up SGI, and they will give you a support contract - they will even check the machines over for you.

The total cost will be a fraction of the cost of a new dual Xeon workstation.

Again, this would be a foolish decision to apply across the board, but if you're doing the sort of effects work where the strengths of something like Octane are a bonus, it's a good solution.

I know someone who runs an effects house who has bought dual CPU Octanes and 4 way Origin 2000 desksides for each of the animators.

The Octane gets used for the creative work, the Origin for the render.

They're using Maya5, and this solution cost them less than the cost of dual Xeon gfx workstations for each animator, and a render farm. A renderfarm sounds like a cool idea, but it's not just the cost of the kit (something people on /. seem to forget). It's the cost of the network infrastructure and storage to support it all. If people think SGI workstations, new, are expensive, you should check out the costs of a SAN to support the work of a renderfarm!