Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[amigakit.com]

We will have them a few days after Individual Computers ships them to us - usually take 3 days from Germany to us if that helps.

[PulsatingQuasar]

Originally Posted by d0pefish

Yay! Confirmed, paid, and upgraded. You're busy tonight AmigaKit - thanks for the fast turnaround.

Me too. :-)

Just upgraded, paid and confirmed. This is going to be a wonderfull end of year in the Netherlands.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by Photon

I can only say, glad someone thought of it !

From Amigakit?

Kind of decides whether I spend 20 EUR on FedEx or 40 EUR on upgrade. That's my only reason for asking.

k, has to be said.... Theres an extra "t" in don't

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

k, has to be said.... Theres an extra "t" in don't

That'ts only in the first ones, to make them more valuable...

[Photon]

Originally Posted by amigakit.com

We will have them a few days after Individual Computers ships them to us - usually take 3 days from Germany to us if that helps.

Yep, that's about Dec 10th earliest from you, even if I'm guess I'm among the first few to place the order.

I'll be quite happy with the 25MHz one I think, I'm in it for the extra features available for both and can't think of a need for 20% faster and 32MB extra.

If you think it's likely it won't make it to Sweden before the 23rd Dec, I'll add FedEx. Is it? (Reply to ticket if you want instead of here.)

[Amigaman]

@Jens

Another master stroke good sir!!

Sadly I don't think my work secret santa will stretch their £5 limit to this, so will have to buy it for myself when I get paid next... hang the rent, I have important things to do with my money!

[gibs]

@Amigakit I have opened a ticket to update my order for an ACA630 @ 30Mhz...What do I need to do next ?

[DyLucke]

Can the ACA1230 56 be preordered yet?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by DyLucke

Can the ACA1230 56 be preordered yet?

Yes, it's available in the webshops of my resellers. Shipping will start in a few days.

Jens

[amigakit.com]

Here is the link for the ACA 1230/56:

European Link:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1005

UK Link:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1005

[Nikolaj_sofus]

Does ACA630-30 still only have pasive cooling?
Would an activly cooled ACA630-40/50 be possible?

Not that i really need the extra power since i'm most likely only gonna do whdload. Just out of interest.

Amigakit.

Btw.
I've been trying to make a support ticket two times today, both failed.
Are you having some sort of trouble in that area?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Nikolaj_sofus

Amigakit.

Btw.
I've been trying to make a support ticket two times today, both failed.
Are you having some sort of trouble in that area?

Nope, that is working fine.
As we are received other tickets.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Nikolaj_sofus

Does ACA630-30 still only have pasive cooling?

Yes, that's what I meant by "successful thermal test" and "no need to remove the disk drive" when I posted the news yesterday.

Originally Posted by Nikolaj_sofus

Would an activly cooled ACA630-40/50 be possible?

Not that i really need the extra power since i'm most likely only gonna do whdload. Just out of interest.

Of course it would be possible. However, I doubt that an 030 would be worth the effort - the added cost of all the mechanical installation would push the price through the roof, and if you're spending that much money anyway, you might want to think about making a new motherboard.

Jens

[gibs]

Why "don't even think about overclocking" ?
Is it really impossible to overclock those boards ?
Even adding a fan ?

[Predseda]

I think Jens already explained that before, somewhere in the beginning of the thread.

[AndyLandy]

Originally Posted by Predseda

I think Jens already explained that before, somewhere in the beginning of the thread.

He did. In summary:

The crystal drives the CPU and the RAM. You'll kill the RAM if you mess with the timings (or something along those lines)

[gibs]

okay thanks

I'm a little lost. I have ordered & upgraded my order for the ACA630 30Mhz.
I also have the MTEC Viper 630 40Mhz (with 8MB installed).
I have some questions:

The viper sysinfo report : 7489 dhrystones 7.81 mips(@40Mhz)
The ACA630 sysinfo report : 5712 dhrystones 5.96 mips
From this report it seems that the Viper is fastest than the ACA630.

It appear that it's going to be possible to play doom in 256 colours with the ACA630.
It's impossible with the Viper 630. How it can be possible ?
Sysinfo doesn't report what will make doom faster with the ACA630 ?
When the port of Doom for ACA630 will be released ?

-There is no FPU on the ACA630, is it possible to play mp3 ?
-Will the ACA630 rules out the PCMCIA too ?

The ACA630 was designed to be cheap. First the price was raised to +60€ compared to the ACA1230 and now +100€ for the 30Mhz version. I wonder if this accelerator is really faster than the old boards. As said Jens, it will not act better under the workbench with the Indivsion ECS.

It would be cool to show us a video of what it is really capable compared to the others boards. I mean : to equald frequency the ACA is better than the old board because of re RAM access, but the final result compared to a 40Mhz board like the Viper ?


Thanks

[mfilos]

Originally Posted by gibs

The viper sysinfo report : 7489 dhrystones 7.81 mips(@40Mhz)
The ACA630 sysinfo report : 5712 dhrystones 5.96 mips
From this report it seems that the Viper is fastest than the ACA630.

How can u compare 25MHz to 40MHz? Ofc Viper is faster when it comes to pure CPU power. As Jens said the 30MHz has 6936 Dhrystones/7.24 MIPS which is really close to Viper @ 40MHz.

Originally Posted by gibs

It appear that it's going to be possible to play doom in 256 colours with the ACA630.
It's impossible with the Viper 630. How it can be possible ?
Sysinfo doesn't report what will make doom faster with the ACA630 ?
When the port of Doom for ACA630 will be released ?

AFAIK Jens replied thoroughly to that some pages ago.

Originally Posted by gibs

-There is no FPU on the ACA630, is it possible to play mp3 ?

MP3 @ 030 aren't so cool anyway if you ask me. Ok on 128kbit it maybe okeish... but for better results noone sticked with pure 030s but some extra MASplayer

Originally Posted by gibs

-Will the ACA630 rules out the PCMCIA too ?

Ofc not! Only the MTec/Viper @ 8MB RAM ruled out the PCMCIA. MTec/Viper @ 4MB RAM along with Apollo 630 never had PCMCIA issues.

Originally Posted by gibs

The ACA630 was designed to be cheap. First the price was raised to +60€ compared to the ACA1230 and now +100€ for the 30Mhz version. I wonder if this accelerator is really faster than the old boards. As said Jens, it will not act better under the workbench with the Indivsion ECS.

ACA1230 was designed to be cheap (@99 euro). I never heard that ACA630 was supposed to be cheap, but if you consider that 99euro is the price of 1230 but with low cost 030... you can add some for the full 030 plus some diffrences of the board of the A600 accelerator.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by gibs

I'm a little lost. I have ordered & upgraded my order for the ACA630 30Mhz.
I also have the MTEC Viper 630 40Mhz (with 8MB installed).
I have some questions:

The viper sysinfo report : 7489 dhrystones 7.81 mips(@40Mhz)
The ACA630 sysinfo report : 5712 dhrystones 5.96 mips
From this report it seems that the Viper is fastest than the ACA630.

40MHz is more than 30MHz. However, you're quoting the Sysinfo values of the 25MHz card. The 30MHz card is faster: Sysinfo reports 7.24 MIPS and 6936 Dhrystones. The extremely fast memory transfer gives it incredible integer power. In practise, you will hardly tell a difference between your 40MHz card and the ACA630-30. If you want to compare the ACA630-30's power to your own system, please download the AIBB module that I have uploaded yesterday.

Originally Posted by gibs

It appear that it's going to be possible to play doom in 256 colours with the ACA630.
It's impossible with the Viper 630. How it can be possible ?

Memory access speed. Try "bustest" from Aminet and compare to the values that we've posted in this thread. A processor can only be as fast as it's memory. If memory is slow, then all the MHz in the world won't help you: The CPU is idle, waiting for the next instruction.

Originally Posted by gibs

When the port of Doom for ACA630 will be released ?

This special "port" takes advantage of Indivision ECS features. However, we're also testing with the standard version from Aminet: It makes 7 frames per second. What's the speed that your Viper makes?

Originally Posted by gibs

-There is no FPU on the ACA630, is it possible to play mp3 ?

A 68030 is too slow to play MP3. Have a look at Delfina or the MAS player if you want to play MP3 with your A600.

Originally Posted by gibs

-Will the ACA630 rules out the PCMCIA too ?

ACA1230 and ACA630 are all PCMCIA-friendly.

Originally Posted by gibs

The ACA630 was designed to be cheap. First the price was raised to +60€ compared to the ACA1230 and now +100€ for the 30Mhz version. I wonder if this accelerator is really faster than the old boards. As said Jens, it will not act better under the workbench with the Indivsion ECS.

Don't compare the 630 price to the 1230 price - they are completely differnt designs, different mechanical solution, even different bus timing as one is a sync and the other is an async design. It is not correct to speak of "raising" the price over the 99,- EUR for the A1200 28MHz card. It's like comparing the price of a bicycle and a motorcycle - they are different things.

Once again, if you want to judge it's speed and compare it to your system, then the AIBB module that I have uploaded yesterday is the best way to do so.

Originally Posted by gibs

It would be cool to show us a video of what it is really capable compared to the others boards. I mean : to equald frequency the ACA is better than the old board because of re RAM access, but the final result compared to a 40Mhz board like the Viper ?

I'll leave it up to the first customers to make those videos. It's a lot of work to do such a video right, and there's legal issues as well, especially if we're showing ADoom, which may not be shown in Germany (game was rated too violent). We're even avoiding to mention the name on the German forums.

Jens

[gibs]

Thanks for the feedback. It was not clear in my head and I guess it wasn't for lot of us (for example Fitzsteve thought that the indivision ECS was going to act more like a video card) To be honest (even if I own 2 indivision ECS, I thought the same : that maybe with a software update it would act more like a video card)

For people like me that already own an accelerator board the ACA630 is still interesting...there are + and -

-it seems less powerfull than the Appolo / Viper

+ it got more memory
+ doesn't rules out the pcmcia
+ silent

From what I've read a 68030+fpu is able to read mp3 (ok ok output is 8bits but it seems fast enough to start. ex amigaamp requierement is a 68030@50Mhz, Amiamp a 68020+) Of course I'm not talking about reading a mp3 like on a recente computer or to compete with an iPod nano, I'm not stupid it's all about geekery.

BTW It would have been cool to make an accelerator that kill the old ones.