Solaris Pentium vs. Solaris Sparc

The problem is that I can't attach equivalent hardware. Given the choice between deploying Solaris on an x86 or a sparc I'll take the x86 90+% of the time -- on the desktop the price-performance is tough to beat. However, there's simply no way that I can do it for anything that requires shuffling around large amounts of data. I can't get a PC that has enough aggregate bandwidth; an Enterprise machine will smoke the PC's doors off despite the fact that the PC is clocking hundreds of Mhz faster (aside: does anyone know offhand what the typical CPI is for the Ppro, PII and PIII?). Again, that's not a commentary on the processor, it's a commentary on the overall architecture. A Sequent, for example, has a far better architecture than any PC I can buy. I run Solaris on Ppros, PIIs and Sparcs, Linux on PIIIs and OpenBSD on Sparcs. The PCs are less reliable than the sparcs, but even then they're far more reliable than anything from the late 70's. If we look at contemporaries, my fuzzy recollection is that the 785 I was using was generally a hell of a lot more reliable than the PC/AT I was using at the time -- and the 785 cranked a hell of a lot harder than the AT did. Cheers, Chris