Sun Ultra 80
Gallery
Image of OSfOM.org Collection's Sun Ultra 80.
Technical Specifications
| Model: | Sun Ultra 80 |
|---|---|
| Codename: Platform: |
Quasar (A27) sun4u |
| Processor: Math Copro: |
4x UltraSPARC II (in CPU) |
| Clock Speed: | 450MHz |
| RAM: | |
| Graphics: | |
| Operating System: | |
| Introduced: | November 1999 |
| Dealer price (net): |
The Sun Ultra 80: The Quad-Processor Powerhouse
Sun Microsystems introduced the Ultra 80 workstation in November 1999 as its highest-end desktop model based on the UltraSPARC II architecture. It was designed for technical and scientific computing tasks requiring multiprocessing and high-performance graphics.
The system used a desktop tower chassis that supported up to four 450 MHz UltraSPARC II processors. This setup targeted parallel workloads such as computational fluid dynamics, structural analysis, and complex simulations. The workstation supported up to 4 GB of RAM and used UltraSCSI storage interfaces.
For expansion, the Ultra 80 included multiple PCI slots and two UPA slots. The UPA slots accommodated graphics accelerators such as the Elite3D and Expert3D series for 3D visualization and rendering.
Running 64-bit Solaris, the workstation was deployed primarily in research institutions, large enterprises, and government agencies. Its price and configuration kept it from being a mass-market product like the Ultra 5 or Ultra 10; instead, it demonstrated the scalability of the UltraSPARC architecture in a desktop form factor. The Ultra 80 was Sun's final high-end UltraSPARC II workstation before the company moved to the UltraSPARC III and subsequent processor architectures.