English Amiga Board - View Single Post - Apollo 1230-16 Outperforming Blizzard 1230-50??

19 November 2009, 22:20

Yes I know the title of this thread is intriguing

I have an Apollo 1230 card. First of all... how the hell can anyone overclock a 16 mhz cpu to 40 mhz and call them self a decent man (150%), even more sell it as a proper product??

Anyway, this seems to be the rule of thumb for Apollo hardware as far as I can read from various forums. Although I must give them creds for making a crappy looking, ferociously overclocked turbo card that actually manages to be extremely fast AND stable (although I'm really feeling for that poor 68030 every time I flip the switch)...

Where comes the Blizzard 1230 into play here? Well, my Apollo kitten is performing 7885 dhrystones and 8.22 Mips in SysInfo 3.24. Yes! I know SysInfo sucks but it gives a hint. So I ran AIBB 6.5 and at 40mhz it's being on par with my GVP 1230+ II at 50mhz, actually slightly faster in some tests. Which... is actually comparable or perhaps slightly faster than some Blizzard numbers I've seen out there. Mind you this is on WB 3.1 without any fancy utils or libraries loaded afaik. I don't even have the install disk for this card (if there are any?).

So now I wonder what would happen if I pop a real 68030-50mhz and a 50mhz crystal on this card? It would certainly not be slower! There is a problem. As you can see on the picture, the CPU is soldered to the card. How ever the good news is that there are soldering pads for a PGA socket. My question is this: Can I simply de-solder the cpu, solder in a PGA socket and put in a new cpu in it?? And of course change the xtal to 50 mhz.

Oh, by the way, I'm not even sure if this is really an Apollo board. From comparing pictures on the net I think it could as well be an Elbox 1230-II.

Thanks for reading. Please comment...

19 November 2009, 22:20	#1
DonFuego Posts: n/a	Apollo 1230-16 Outperforming Blizzard 1230-50?? Yes I know the title of this thread is intriguing I have an Apollo 1230 card. First of all... how the hell can anyone overclock a 16 mhz cpu to 40 mhz and call them self a decent man (150%), even more sell it as a proper product?? Anyway, this seems to be the rule of thumb for Apollo hardware as far as I can read from various forums. Although I must give them creds for making a crappy looking, ferociously overclocked turbo card that actually manages to be extremely fast AND stable (although I'm really feeling for that poor 68030 every time I flip the switch)... Where comes the Blizzard 1230 into play here? Well, my Apollo kitten is performing 7885 dhrystones and 8.22 Mips in SysInfo 3.24. Yes! I know SysInfo sucks but it gives a hint. So I ran AIBB 6.5 and at 40mhz it's being on par with my GVP 1230+ II at 50mhz, actually slightly faster in some tests. Which... is actually comparable or perhaps slightly faster than some Blizzard numbers I've seen out there. Mind you this is on WB 3.1 without any fancy utils or libraries loaded afaik. I don't even have the install disk for this card (if there are any?). So now I wonder what would happen if I pop a real 68030-50mhz and a 50mhz crystal on this card? It would certainly not be slower! There is a problem. As you can see on the picture, the CPU is soldered to the card. How ever the good news is that there are soldering pads for a PGA socket. My question is this: Can I simply de-solder the cpu, solder in a PGA socket and put in a new cpu in it?? And of course change the xtal to 50 mhz. Oh, by the way, I'm not even sure if this is really an Apollo board. From comparing pictures on the net I think it could as well be an Elbox 1230-II. Thanks for reading. Please comment... Attached Thumbnails Last edited by DonFuego; 19 November 2009 at 22:28.