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The N64 cut down on a lot of expensive parts. Versus a typical-spec SGI Indy, the cheapest SGI, thousands of dollars were shaved off. Nintendo/SGI might have still lost money, but if an SGI workstation was a sedan, the N64 was a hot rod. All engine, no frills. CPU - Indy: R4400SC, 16 kb L1, 1MB L2 CPU - N64: R4300i derivative embedded chip, 32 kB L1, no L2, half bus width RAM - Indy: 16, 32, or 64 MB of RAM, plus dedicated framebuffer RAM - N64: 4 MB of RAM (this was potentially half the cost of the system!) Graphics - Indy: "Newport" graphics -- 1280x1024, 8 or 24 bit color, full, dedicated framebuffer Graphics - N64: 320x240, 8, 16, or 24 bit color. typically dedicated 1/4 of system RAM to framebuffer Storage - Indy: SCSI hard drive + SCSI magneto-optical removable Storage - N64: not a damn thing I/O - Indy: ethernet, ISDN, high speed serial I/O - N64: nothing |