SGI Origin 3000 and Onyx 3000

The Origin 3000 and the Onyx 3000 is a family of mid-range and high-end computers developed and manufactured by SGI. The Origin 3000 is a server, while the Onyx 3000 is a visualization system. Both systems were introduced in July 2000 to succeed the Origin 2000 and the Onyx2 respectively. These systems ran the IRIX 6.5 Advanced Server Environment operating system. Entry-level variants of these systems based on the same architecture but with a different hardware implementation are known as the Origin 300 and Onyx 300. The Origin 3000 was succeeded by the Altix 3000 in 2004 and the last model was discontinued on 29 December 2006, while the Onyx 3000 was succeeded by the Onyx4 and the Itanium-based Prism in 2004 and the last model was discontinued on 25 March 2005.

Physically, the Origin 3000 is based on "bricks" - rackmounted modules that provide a specific function, that are connected together using NUMAlink 3 cables for modules providing compute functions, or Crosstown2 cables for modules providing I/O functions. These bricks are mounted in a standard 19-inch rack. There are two racks for the Origin 3000, a 17U-high short rack, and a 39U-high tall rack.

Architecturally, the Origin 3000 is based on the distributed shared memory NUMAflex architecture. The NUMAlink 3 system interconnect uses a fat tree hypercube network topology.

The C-brick is a 3U-high enclosure that contains a node on a PCB. The node contains two or four processors, the local and directory memory, and the Bedrock ASIC. It connects to the system using NUMAlink 3.

The two processors and their secondary caches is contained on a PIMM (Processor Integrated Memory Module) daughter card that plugs into two 240-pin connectors on the node board. Initially, the Origin 3000 used the 360 MHz R12000 and the 400 MHz R12000A processors with 4 or 8 MB of secondary cache. In May 2001, the 500 MHz R14000 was introduced with 8 MB of secondary cache and in February 2002, the 600 MHz R14000A was made available. Near the end of its lifetime, the C-brick was updated with 800 MHz MIPS processors.

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