#A3000 / 16Mhz — Junk?!?
61 messages in this thread
Hi, folks. If anyone is using an Amiga 3000 16 MHZ computer, please reply;
I would like to know how you like the unit and how you would rate its
performance. I was just at an Amiga dealer today, to look at an A3000 / 16
(it would be my first Amiga), but the salesman tried everything he could to
convince me to get either an A3000 / 25, or an A2500, or an A200HD with a
GVP accelerator. He said the 3000-16 was such a poor machine, he wouldn't
take it if I bought one for him!
I would really like to know what people who actually are using this
computer have to say; somehow I don't think that getting the slower A3000
would preclude me from installing 68040 accelerator cards, or would run as
slow as molasses, as he claims. Thanks for your help, I hope to get some
kind of an Amiga really soon!!
—-Dave
Dave,
I do NOT have an Amiga 3000, but may offer you some words of advice,
What are your intended uses of an Amiga? If it is home hobby use ie word
processing, tele comunication, games or such go get the 16 mhz 3000, you
can't go wrong. but if you plan to do Video work or heavy duty raytracing
you might be better off with the 25 mhz 3000 or even a 2000 with an
accelorator. I have a friend with a 3000/16 that does a lot of midi/music
work and he loves it (he was using a megaST before). I have an accelerated
2000 which I prefer (althought wouldn't mind having a 3000T hehe) because
it is more expandable, I have a bridgeboard with ram, video card, and
multifunction card, which would not work in a 3000. So it all boils down
to what you plan do to with your new Amy.
Hope this helps
..Steve
Whap!ping from beautiful coastal South Carolina
Steve: Thanks for your advice… What do I want to do with the Amiga? "Home
hobby" I think would be the best description. At first, I'd probably just
do word processing, telecom and financial analysis. That's what I do on my
CoCo-3 now. I would like to add on some fascinating programs like Distant
Suns, and a few challenging games for recreation. The CoCo-3 is devoid of
selections in that arena, and its SLOW speed (1 MHz) would make the 16 MHz
A3000 seem like the space shuttle to me, I'm sure. The Sub Battle Simulator
that runs under OS-9 Level II on the CoCo runs at 2 MHz, but is
*excuciatingly* slow. It's my favorite game.
Later, I probably would expand the Amiga for more capabilities in video,
ray tracing, maybe programming, whether in "C" or other language. I
definitely want a machine that can be as expandable as possible so that I
won't get "bottlenecked" — wanting to do something on my computer, but not
being able to, or having to spend too much to make it happen. I want this
computer to last a LONG time, and serve my needs as easily as possible.
I like the 3000 because frankly the 2000 is really a 5000 in a big suit,
and isn't worth the money they want for it. I would get the 2000-HD if the
price was below, say, $900. The 3000 is a true 32-bit computer, has the
most potential for *future* development, and can take full advantage of 2.0
DOS. Running the Toaster is not really a concern right now. I think I'll
hold off some more, and wait to see what C= does with its prices. I have
read that the A3000/16 is being discontinued, so perhaps the prices on the
A3000/25 might come down when they sell out of the 16s.
—-Dave
The only drawback is that with an 040 accelerator card, you may have to
lose the capability to boot back in 030 mode. Given the state of Amiga
software compatibility with the 040, having the 030 as a backup is a must.
The reason is that most 040 cards for the A3000 are 25Mhz. The 030 and 881
are soldered in and are not changable and are 16Mhz parts. It is ulikely
that they would run at the faster speed as the clock on the acceleartor
card will supply the clock for the motherboard.
The other difference is that you get a 68882 math coprocessor with the
25Mhz version.
I'd go for the 25Mhz version in a minute. You should have got one during
the power-up deal.
-Greg
au contraire – haven't found one program that fails on my Progressive
Peripherals 040. anything which runs OK on an 030 sure ought to work fine
on an 040, just faster! also no problem using the Progressive 040 in a
3000/16 – it does take over, though. the only thing the 882 is good for
once you're in 040 land is for transcendental math functions like sin and
cosine, etc. logs, etc. the 040 absolutely blazes on typical math stuff,
though much much faster than an 882. i have two customers who bought
A3000/16/50's and theyre pleased as punch, having bought them for under
$1900 on the power up.
Try any version of SYSINFO from 2.22 on up. On an A3000 with 040 you get a
8000004 Illegal address exception. Strangely enough, this is caused by a
Bus error which occurs whenever a program writes to an area that does not
physically exist on the A3000. In 030 mode, sysinfo works because the
exception handler fakes the access and returns back to the program. This
handler doesn't change under the 040 even though stack frames are mucho
different. It blasts several fields in the stack frame and returns,
confusing the 040 and generating the 040 invalid instruction exception.
The bad thing is that there is not enough infomation present in the stack
frame to fake out the 040 like what is done on the 030. The 040 tries to
rerun the access after return from exception, hitting that same
non-existant address, causing yet another bus error to occur ad infinitum.
It may have been possible for the 040 hardware developer to short circuit
the Bus error, had he been smart enough to know the problem existed. 🙂
To prove my point, I have written a beta quality program to softload the OS
on the 040 using its MMU like the superkickstart feature of the original
030 A3000. In there, I mapped all nonexistant ram to a single 8K page. Now
memory exists everywhere in the logical 040 memory map. Viola! Sysinfo now
runs! And any other program that writes or reads from any weird area of the
memory map. These programs are buggy and should be fixed, but they run on
the A2000s with 040s and A3000/030s because the bus errors aren't a problem
there.
I'm not bashing Commodore, but am upset at Motorola for making the 040 so
fast yet very rough around the edges. I'm just beginning to dig into whole
area of detailed 040 compatibility and am supprised at what I'm finding.
Some areas of the 040 are disgustingly weak.
-Greg
– via Whap!
the only problem I'm finding with 040 on my 2000 is the floating point
software used to emulate transcendental functions which exist in hardware
on the 881/882 are quite slow (at least slower than they should be, though
they may be modified for faster speed any time now …) – but it isn't the
speed penalty for transcendentals which bugs me as much as another aspect
thereof. I find that when running a ton of transcendentals (sin , log,
etc) that these emulation routines apparently do some sort of 'forbid' on
the Amiga and multitasking goes to he**, I mean the mouse even moves very
slow and jerky. either they are doing a forbid (blocking task switching)
or else some sort of 'interrupt kill'. Anyway it's the only weak point
I've found. I have a sort of sysinfo program and it works under PP&S's
system fine. What I really LOVE about my 040 is its SPEED! It is about 6x
faster than a 25mhz 882 doing my new FractalPro5.0 Mandelbrots, etc. One
Mandelbrot Set which takes about 15 minutes on a 25mhz coprocessor takes
2min, 7sec on my 040. That's FAST! It's a fair test since most of the
time is in the Mandelbrot loop, not drawing pixels. PP&S told me that
mapping the kickstart into 32-bit ram isn't nearly as effective on the 040
as it is on the 030 since the MMU pages on the 040 are much smaller than on
the 030. At least that's how I understood what they said. Which 040 are
you using? I LOVE my PP&S! It SCREAMS! BTW that same Mandelbrot pic took
76 minutes on my 16mhz 020 with the older integer version of FractalPro
(the 4.0 version) and 45 min on a 25mhz GVP030. In integer it took 16min
on my 040 and now it is only 2min using 040 floating point. Love it. What
used to be a week's work doing a 500 pic mandelbrot animation is down to a
few hours. I'm a happy camper, to be sure.
On an A2000, with no bus error logic, it runs much better than on the
A3000. I have the PP&S 040 for the A3K. I was terribly frustrated with the
level of compatibility until I found out what was the cause (Bus Errors).
-Greg
my reasons for choosing an A2000/PPS040 was the big mem expandability on
the A2000 version of the PPS040, the other was that I LOVE my TrumpCardPro
controller and have had lots of mixed reviews about the SCSI in the A3000
(2091-type controller I think). Glad I made the right choice the first
time. Have you been able to re-write exception vectors, etc. to improve 040
performance on the 3000? IN other words, did you fix the problems? As an
Amiga Dealer I want to be able to pass along the straight skinny to my
A3000 customers. Thanks.
The problems are solvable and actually, I have written several programs to
get around the problem, including a replacement handler. But these are part
of stuff that I am not really at liberty to discuss or release right now.
The truth is that software which causes a bus error exception on the A3K is
broken even though it may work fine on an A2000. The example I quoted,
SysInfo, even claims to have used enforcer in development. Until a couple
of months ago, enforcer only was aware of 24 bit address space and
apparently accesses outside of that area weren't always detected. The most
recent version fixes that. It is important for developers to be aware of
what the most recent versions of these tools are and update asap.
When the A3K first came out, I was against it because there were too many
changes to be software compatible. I think most of the kinks are out and
having the chance for a cheap 040 card, I bit the bullet and went for the
A3K. I'm happy I did.
-Greg
As far as A3000 SCSI, I have no problems with it. I have a recent
motherboard and 2.04, which seems to be OK to me. I have two hard drives, a
CD-ROM, and a SCSI scanner on it and it works just fine. While the hardware
uses some of the same components as the 2091, it is considerably different
as it can DMA to any address, and can move data 32 bits at a time, making
it potentially faster.
– via Whap!
thanks for the info. we're still mystified by this Rodime 3259T which
works superb on my 040/A2000 but not on the A3000 (either internal or
external). Gold Service won't assist as it is 3rd party and not covered.
Thanks for the tip on enforcer – i'd like to get the latest version.
Andy or someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the A3000
is fairly close to SCSI 2 under 2.04, and the drive might not be quite up
to snuff. The 2091 and other A2000 controllers are not generally as picky
in my experience. -Greg
amusing info – thanks. my trumpcard pro (latest board rev) eats drives for
lunch! haven't found one which won't work perfect on it yet. thanks again.
I'm going to refund my customer's money and use the drive myself. It's a
terrific buy anyway at my price and I can use a 200 meg drive anyway. Live
and learn – however I will no longer guarantee any particular HD will work
on a 3000, customer's risk from now on. Don't like to do that, but can't
afford to eat drives – I know what works on a 500/1000/2000 setup, but find
unfortunately the 3000 is not predictable. This little Rodime is an
absolute gem on my TCPro – REAL fast and reliable. C'est la vie. I've
heard of other problems with maxtor and syquest, too. Too bad the SCSI
port on the 3000 ain't as universal as the one on a TCPro. Maybe Quantums
will always work – but they're much more expensive and no better than the
others. I personally think Imprimis drives are the Rolls Royces of HD's.
Actually, Greg, I've found that if you turn CopyBack mode off, the 040 is
no less compatible than the 030…
(I only turn it off to run problem software, of course)
Yes, Resource030 dies at program exit if I forget to turn copyback cache
off. CDROM-FS also has some bugs that cause problems for me. Aquarium runs
fine off the hard disk, but dies if run off the CD-ROM (Aquarium dies when
quitting the program, a common problem). ExpressCopy off the Fish CD-rom
will crash on load if the 040 copyback is enabled. These are repeatible; I
get lots of random stuff,too. But I now know why (see my reply elsewhere in
this thread).
-Greg
– via Whap!
Greg: Thank you for confirming (and explaining) what the dealer was trying
to tell me. His message was the same, except he was using a lot of simple
analogies (like filling pails) that really made it more difficult for me to
understand him. He sounded like he knew what to say, but he didn't want to
use "technical" terms. I hate when that happens.
The expandability of the A3000/16 is a serious concern, so I will wait for
lower prices on the 25s, and get one of those. As for the power-up deal, I
don't think I could have participated in that, since I have never owned a
Commodore computer, and so I don't have a serial number or manual to get in
on this. Only one person I know has a Commodore, and he has an A2000HD.
—-Dave
I have to agree with one of the other messages here, what Amiga you get
should be determined by what you intend to do with it. When I bought my
machine there was not that big of a price difference between the 16 and 25
Mhz versions and I'm an admitted spead freak anyway!
There is no cheap way to speed up the 16 Mhz machines – '040 cards are
expensive!
The 3000 has a 32 bit wide data path vs. the 16 bit wide path in the 2000
which I consider to be an advantage.
Unless you anticipate getting a Video Toaster (which isn't suggested for
installation in a 3000) I'd go for the 3000/25. When I bought mine, I
determined that the 3000/25 with the larger hard disk and more RAM was over
priced so I got the 50 MB hard disk and the 2 meg of RAM and later spent
the savings on more RAM which I installed myself.
Good luck!
– via Whap!
if you need the speed, buy it in the form of an A3000/25/xx. if you're not
doing ray tracing or other math, the /16 is dandy and quite nice. they do
have a promotional price on it right now, too. similar to the power up but
without the documentation requirements.
Jay: Thanks for the advice. I realize that the A3000/16 would be a better
buy than the A2000s, but due to the expandability questions brought up
here, and without the Forum's help I might have given up on all this, I'll
hold off for now and wait for the A3000/25s to go on sale. The problem is
that to realize there's a sale going on, you have to stop in to see an
Amiga dealer. I'd never know if they were *giving* the boxes away
otherwise.
I feel the entire Amiga line is overpriced. The prices of 386s are dropping
like rocks through a wet paper bag. An 20 MHz 386 can be had for under
$1000 these days. Commodore has to do *something* about the Amiga prices.
*I* know that Amigas are the most versitile, easy to use computer on the
market, but a) they are presently a bad value for the $$, and b) I would
never have known this, had I not become friends with someone who owns an
Amiga. The marketing execs at C= must be being paid for nothing.
BTW, what is Whap!? Everybody here seems to be Whap!pping. Is it a telecom
program?
—-Dave
–Via VIP Writer 2.0 and V-Term 3.0
Geez, you really do learn quickly!
🙂
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Whap! is an automated program for CIS that runs on the Amiga. It does much
of the same thing you would get with TAPCIS on the IBM. It's a great
program. You'll find it in Library 9 of AmigaVendor forum.
Betty
Whap! Is a an automated program for accessing Compuserve. It allows you
to collect your mail, and then read/reply/originate your mail off line. It
will also generate catalogs for the areas you frequent, and automagically
download/upload files you have selected. My average access time to
Compuserve is 8 minutes per session these days.
BTW: I wouldn't necessarily agree the Amiga is over priced these days. You
can pick up an Amiga 500 for $399, at Walden Software.
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
I take it from your software (VIP Writer, etc.) that you must be using a
Coco of some sort, nice machine for its day, I used to use one until I
bought an Amiga.
Anyway, because a lot of people are trading up to Amiga 3000s, there are
more used 2000s on the market which can be had for reasonable prices. A
friend of mine recently got a great deal on a used 2000.
Good Luck!
Well, I was also talked out of an A3000/16 for several reasons.. But if
your choices are between an A3000/16 or an A2000, I would take the
3000/16..
You get the new bus (zorro III), the amber chip (deinterlaced video), and
the smaller, better designed motherboard and powersupply..
The only problem would be if you want to use a toaster (which supposedly
wont work in a A3000)..
Check out the educational deal, if you (or a close friend, nudge nudge)
happens to be enrolled in school.
Good Luck Alan
Alan: Thanks for the advice. Running the Toaster is not a concern for me,
at least not for quite a while. I may never get it. I will probably want to
get some type of IBM compatibility before that (I was planning to try
IBeM).
I agree on the advantages of the 3000, and I am concerned about the
expanability problems I may face later down the road. So, I will wait for
the 3000/25 to go on sale, probably when the 3000/16s are gone (they have
been discontinued).
What is the educational deal? It just so happens that my best friend has
gone back to college full-time; could that result in some big savings? Do
you know any details about that? Thanks again!
—-Dave
Ask your dealer, I bought my system over a year ago and the price was quite
good..
Alan Russell
Dave –
> What is the educational deal?
Commodore has "Educational Institutional" and "Educational Individual"
price lists; your authorized Amiga dealer should have them available.
Amiga 3000-25/50 with 2M RAM and 50M hard drive, and no monitor, $2527
. . . . . JimDoc
Jim: $2527 for an A3000-25/50 is still too much, IMHO. In today's computer
market, it should be more like $1527. A grand is still a lot of moo-la, and
when we're talking 3 of em…. Seriously, if C= wants to keep selling those
Amigas they've got to come down to earth. I can't beleive that people are
so nuts over the Toaster, that C= will keep the A2000 price over $1000, and
thus keep the A3000 woefully overpriced.
—-Dave
An a3000-25 is something you'd compare against a 486; people often make the
mistake of comparing 386 machines against 68030 based machines. A 68030 is
a considerably better processor than a 386, and nearly as good as a 486. a
68040 is much better than a 486.
The prices for 486 based machines and the a3000/25 are comparable. Also –
the 3000 has a MUCH faster bus than any of the 486 machines out there; as
far as I know, it's the fastest bus in any desktop PC in the mainstream,
certainly faster than any clone machine.
We would all like better prices; but if you compare the price/performance
of _comparable_ clones against the 3000-25, the clones lose, by an
unquestionable margin.
If you want to compare a 386 based machine, look for prices on a 68020
card, if you can find one. :^)
Ben
Dave, as others here have said, the 16 Mhz A3000 is really not the smartest
of purchases. While you can add an 040 board (cheapest one out there I know
of is around $1500), you can NOT upgrade the 16 Mhz machine to a 25 Mhz
machine… I consider that a MAJOR flaw.
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Correct me if I am wrong, but I dont know of any Amiga that can be
converted from XXX MHZ to XXX+ MHZ, except by changing the crystal on the
motherboard.
Is that correct??
> I dont know of any Amiga that can be converted from XXX MHZ to XXX+ MHZ
I wish I could give a difinitive answer, but I'm not sure. That's why (I
think) I phrased my reply in questions. I was told that the A3000/16 could
not be upgraded to an A3000/25, period. To me, that seemed like a serious
drawback to the machine, as speed is becoming just as important as gobs of
ram these days. You can upgrade an A2000 by adding any number of
accelerators for just about any budget… I've seen 25 MHz GVP A3001 kits
sold used for under $1000… so, a new A2000HD + a used GVP board would run
somewhere around $2300… just under the cost of an A3000/25.
I'm sorry if my message was misleading!
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Correct, you cannot upgrade an A3000 16mhz to a A3000 25 Mhz..
You also cannot upgrade a Radish to a Tomatoe.
But you could put a '040 board in when they arrive, and it would be faster
than a stock a3000/16, but slower than a A3000/25 with the same '040 board.
You say Tomatoe, I say Tomato, let's call the whole thing off 🙂
"..but slower than a A3000/25 with the same '040 board."
From the reading I have done on the subject, the A3000-16 should run just
as fast as the -25 with the same '040 board. Do you know of any reasons why
it shouldn't?
It would still be a tick or two slower than a 25 mhz 3000 running a 040
board. When the 040 board has to use the system resources located on the
motherboard, it would be limited to the 16 mhz operation of the motherboard
chips. However, it would still be pretty darn fast.
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
You are wrong. The A3000-15 bus operates at 25Mhz if a 25MHz CPU is
plugged in.
CPU's don't control speeds, the crystal on the motherboard does. You can
stick a "50 mhz" CPU in, a 25 mhz 3000, and it will still be running at 25
mhz. All the rating on the CPU means, is that you can run it that fast,
and it will not overheat. If you try to run a slower rated CPU at faster,
and faster speeds, the first thing you will see, is increased temperature,
then you will see errors made by the chip, and finally, the chip won't
function properly at all. If you run the chip at an increased rate where
heat build-up occurs, you run the risk of shortening chip life, and/or
causing failure in the near term, due to excessive heat.
As for the 3000 buss. The 3000 can handle two types of cards. There is
the Zorro II of the A2000 variety, and there is the new Zorro spec, for the
3000's. The new cards may well run at full system speed. I don't know of
any in existance, so I can't say. The cards made for the 2000 are not
capable of 25 mhz. Doubt many of them are capable of 16 mhz. The card I'm
using (successfully, although slowly), has 150 ns rams. If you were to try
to address them at 25 mhz, that would be almost 4 times their rated speed.
Which would result in constantly occuring memory errors. Whether or not the
3000 slows all bus activity when it senses any of the older cards in the
slots, or just slows bus activity when addressing the older cards, I don't
know. I only knowm that it isn't addressing the card out of the 2000 at 25
mhz. Using PAgestream, there is a noticeable slowdown in screen redrawing
when the card is plugged in.
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
Sorry, a slip of the tongue. I'm aware that the crystal is really
responsible for the bus speeds, and that is really what I meant by '25MHz
CPU'. I will use the A3000-correct term 'xxMHz busmaster' when referrfing
to changing bus speeds.
-> accelerators for just about any budget… I've seen 25 MHz GVP A3001 ->
kits sold used for under $1000… so, a new A2000HD + a used -> GVP board
would run somewhere around $2300… just under the cost -> of an A3000/25.
Where have you seen these used 25MHz GVP A3001 kits? We have an Amiga
2000HD.
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless'
– via Whap!
In the classifieds here… that's how I bought and sold my A3001 w/4 megs
of 32 bit ram… for $1000.
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Michael: Thanks for the help… You and all the others on the Forum, not to
mention the dealer, who really brought this up and gave me dbouts, although
he could have sold me a 3000/16 right then and there, have convinved me
that the best thing to do is hold off for a good deal on an A3000/25. The
future ability to expand the computer in any direction or area of use is of
major concern to me. Thanks again!
—Dave
BTW, what does "Whapp!ng from the North Coast" mean?
Dave:
There was an ad placed in the classifieds here yesterday or the day before
for a loaded A3000/25 for around $1700… the posting was made by David
Vollant (sp?).
I agree… your dealer COULD have sold you any unit, but IMHO, instead,
gave you some good advice… spend less now, on an A2000 or A2000HD, and
upgrade as you need/want to, or go straight to an A3000. That choice is
really dictacted by what you want to do with your Amiga. Again, as I
mentioned earlier, if heavy duty video work is what you have in mind for
the near future, the A2000 series will offer greater flexibility today (but
who knows about tomorrow <grin>.
"Whapp!ng" = communicating via Whap!, an automated telecomm program for the
Amiga and CI$ forums.
"from the North Coast" = from the shore of Lake Erie, Cleveland, Ohio.
Good Luck,
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
"Dave, as others here have said, the 16 Mhz A3000 is really not the
smartest of purchases. While you can add an 040 board (cheapest one out
there I know of is around $1500), you can NOT upgrade the 16 Mhz machine to
a 25 Mhz machine… I consider that a MAJOR flaw. "
What are you trying to say? That the '040 boards run at only 16MHz on the
A3000/16? And if you are talking about an '030 25MHz upgrade… Why in the
world would you need it? Upgrading actual motherboards with faster versions
of the SAME CPU simply isn't a common practice (if practiced at all);
Upgrades of CPU speed are usually accompanied by an upgrade to a better
model of CPU.
I doubt that very few A3000-16 owners will care about the 9MHz difference
in speed until they can afford a REAL upgrade such as an '040 board.
"I doubt that very few A3000-16 owners will care about the 9MHz difference
in speed until they can afford a REAL upgrade such as an '040 board."
Well, I'm one who would have. I specifically avoided the 3000/16 because I
knew that eventually I would want at _least_ a 25 Mhz processor, not
necessarily a "REAL upgrade such as an '040 board." You can upgrade an
A2000 to a 25, 28 or 33 MHz 68030 for about $1000. (Making the total cost
of CPU & accelerator around $2000), but an 040 equipped A3000/16 is going
to run close to $3500. As I said in my message, _I_ (read that as
IMHO…for my purposes) consider that a MAJOR flaw."
BTW, that 9MHz differenceis on the order of 5 times the performance over a
stock 68000 7.14MHz Amiga, and more than a 30% increase in performance over
a 16MHz 68030 A3000. I didn't consider that insignificant. But again, that
is how I approached MY purchase decision.
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
There is another issue here… the memory on the bus of an a2000 runs
essentially at 7mhz; the memory on the bus of an a3000/16 runs at 16 mhz,
32 bits wide… over four times faster. When you buy most (reasonably
priced) 030 boards, you get only a few megs of ram that are 32 bit… and
the rest is slower by a good bit. Plus, the bus reaches very high speeds
when an accellerator is plugged in, IE 25 mhz no problem, making it MUCHO
faster than an a2000 with an accellerator.
Things like the new 64 megabyte ram board from PP&S make this a great
advantage.
Sometimes it's better to get in cheap, than to not get in at all. The a3000
bus is so much better than the a2000's it's silly to think about.
Mind you – for me personally, I'd buy the 25 mhz… also, I need a tower,
because the a3k is too short on slots for my needs. But still, there are
compelling reasons to buy a 16 mhz a3k over an a2000, barring slot issues.
Ben
Ben:
Your points are all well taken and have been mentioned by others in this
thread. I think everyone here has been simply trying to help someone
understand all that is involved in choosing an Amiga system that is right
for any given individual, and that such things are not all B&W issues.
Slots are important to you, not to me. Speed is important to me, but maybe
not to someone else. The video Toaster may be important to someone else,
but, again, not for me. That is why I choose: a)the A3000 and b)the 25MHz
verison.
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Ben –
> Plus, the bus reaches very high speeds when an accellerator is plugged
> in, IE 25 mhz no problem…
Do you mean that in a 16mHz A3000 with a 25 (or 33) mHz '040 board
installed, that the 32-bit memory on the 3000's motherboard is accessed at
25 (or 33) mHz, not at 16?
Along related lines, would you expect the "ultra-fast" memory of GVP's '040
board to make a noticable difference in performance?
. . . . . JimDoc
Yes, GVP's memory could make a difference, if the baord is designed to take
advantage of it (GVP's board, that is, the bus already will).
And again yes, the bus in the a3000/16 is just as fast as the one in the
a3000/25
The bus in the a3000 doesn't run at any particular "speed", unlike the 2000
and previous. It runs about as fast as the cards that are plugged into it
can, which (usually) means as fast as the processor that is accessing the
memory. You go to a 25 mhz 040, and that's how fast the bus will go.
You *may*, and mind you I don't know either way, have to change the memory
chips on the motherboard if CBM was megacheap and went for slower ones, but
somehow I doubt it. Best to check with CBM on that one. Still, there is
nothing about the 3000/16 that makes it permanantly locked to 16mzh.
er mhz. :^)
Ben
The 3000 specific cards may allow the bus to hit full speed, but the
regular zorro bus doesn't run that fast. While saving up for more memory,
I robbed the old 2 meg memory board out of my 2000. Since it has 150 ns
rams in it, it definetly isn't up to 25 mhz.
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
Right – Zorro cards are 7mhz cards, period, forever.
PP&S has an ad out for a 64MB memory board for the 3000…. now *there* is
a reason one might want to go for the new machines, eh? <grin>
I'll be calling them next week to determine if that board is for real or
not… sure hope it is, we're expecting a tower here (someday) if and when
CBM gets off their collective butts.
Ben
Then why didn't you save for the difference and buy the 25MHz model in the
first place, since you knew you 'needed' a 25MHz CPU?
At the time I went from the A1000 to the A2000/GVP3001 I thought that slots
and Toaster compatibility would be important to me… I was wrong (I've
since decided that I didn't want to invest in all that is required for a
full blown Toaster set-up, I mean this IS a hobby <g>). I do wish my A3000
had more than one open PC slot and a place for an internal 5.25 & 3.5
floppy. (What I should have 'saved' for, was an A3000T…:)
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Having just bought a A3000/16, I have been following this debate with great
interest. I have been using an A1000 with 1.5meg. for about 3 years now
and with the advent of the 2.0 operating system it was now time to make a
major decision. Upgrade the A1000 with a rejuvenator board and HD, or take
advantage of the current A2000HD $1399 pricing, or go for broke with an
A3000. With four Amiga dealers within about 45 minutes travel time I
certainly received a lot of opinions with the majority leaning towards the
A2000HD. Most felt this way because "…just plug in a whatever board and
it will be faster than an A3000. Well, after some haggling I was offered an
A3000/16 and 1950 monitor for $2300. I went for it and I am in LOVE. By the
time you put your flicker fixer and speedup board in the A2000HD your
overpriced. And considering the speed increase I have over my A1000 it
makes spending an additional $500.00 (approx.) for 9mhz. seem a little
silly. If I ever really need a faster machine, 25mhz. 68040 performance
plugs right in.
Dave,
As I said, I'm on an Amiga 3000-16/50 right now and I love it. Very nice
machine. And if you want to buy one for me, I'll take it! 🙂
Darin, SPC Technical Support
– via Whap!
I'm very interested in the fate of SuperBase. Rumors have been flying
everywhichway, after the buyout by SPC. I've heard that SPC is going to
phase it out, and I've heard that this is SPC's entry into Amiga software.
Hopefully it is the latter. Can you enlighten us any?
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
All non-Windows products (Amiga/Atari ST/C64/128) have been sold to Oxxi,
Inc. You can reach them at (213)427-1227. Superbase Professional 4 is still
being actively supported and upgraded by them.
Sigh…. I was afraid of that. I don't have anything against Oxxi, it
just sounds like this is where Superbase for will head off into the sunset
on its own. (It could be a good thing, but it would have been nice to see
the opposite result of a more involved commitment to the Amiga.
– Well Whap! Me Silly….
I guess you missed the announcement here. OXXI has purchased the Amiga
version of SuperBASE. They will be maintaining it, updating it, and
supporting it, according to all the messages we have seen here.
I'm using the 3000-16. It's not as fast as the 25MHz model, but it's a
*lot* faster than the 500 I used to use. And as far as I know, you *can*
stick a 68040 card of any speed into it if you can afford it.
The main problem with it is that I'm still loading the OS from disk instead
of ROM and so I'm a little short on memory. A lot of my programs end up
getting loaded into the memory that the CPU has to share with the custom
chips and thus run slower. But I should point out that you'd have this
exact same problem on a 25MHz unit unless you either throw in more than the
standard amount of RAM or get the ROM (thus freeing up 512K of RAM).
The only difference between the A3000-16 and -25 is 9MHz of CPU speed (and
a more efficient math coprocessor). I have loved the nearly 6 months I've
had my A3000-16; have been using it for image processing and desktop
publishing. I would say that salesman was using high-pressure tactics.