SiliconGraphics Octane (1997, production date 2000)
Price range from $17,995 (late-sale price cuts) to $40,000 and up
MIPS R12000@400MHz (up to two CPUs)
SGI Enhanced Solid IMPACT Graphics (ESI); up-gradable with dedicated texture ram or able to be retrofitted with a newer VPRO graphics board
1GB of RAM installed (128MB to 8GB)
The Octane was a staple of late '90s-early ‘00s CGI houses, frequently found in production studios alongside other machines such as higher-end SGI fare like the Onyx² or lower-end AV production systems like the o² . Octanes and their peers are known to have played a role in the rendering pipeline for The Matrix, Shrek, X-Men, Lord of The Rings, and many others.
In addition to film production and game development, SGI Workstations also proved popular in mathematics and medical fields in particular: There remains a relatively steady market for Octanes not just as collector’s pieces and hobbyist machines, but as controllers for older MRI machines, CT scanners, and other imaging instruments.