SGI Octane2

A graphics workstation from SGI. Powered by a modified Unix architecture (SGI's own OS) it features enormous VRAM capabilities as well as up to 96Mb of texture memory. Used by most professionals for 3D creation and rendering, most recently used for the astonishing visuals in "Gladiator."

The SGI Octane2 was released in June 2000 and was essentially an enhanced Octane. It used the same Crossbar memory architecture, proprietory SGI X10 buses, and expectedly, the same case.

SGI, however, heeded to some customer complaints with the introduction of the Octane2. Two PCI slots were added (The optional PCI card cage was still avaliable), and the most important upgrade was the introduction of the VPro graphics.

Nonetheless, like the Indigo2 the upgrade was mostly for the new graphics cards and very little else.

Graphics

• V6: 48bit RGBA, 32 MB (8 MB for textures)
• V8: 48bit RGBA, 128 MB (104 MB for textures)
• V10: 48bit RGBA, 32 MB (8 MB for textures)
• V12: 48bit RGBA, 128 MB (104 MB for textures)

Processors
IP30 Motherboard

• MIPS R12000SCA (Clockspeeds: 360, 400 MHz; 2^nd Level Cache: 2 MB)
• MIPS R14000SCA (Clockspeeds: 550, 600 MHZ; 2^nd Level Cache: 2 MB)