Poll - What would you buy if available

[kipper2k]

Hi All,

Later in the year the Vampire will be available in newer options as progress is made towards a high performance Standalone/A1200 Vampire. We are discussing 2 options, the basic vampire (as shown in the a600 as the lower cost model), and a high performance board. The high performance board (with state of the art FPGA) is expected to have the following specs:

• Speedrate of 400 points
• Icache 64KB / Dcache 256 KB
• 1024 MB fastmem
• memspeed > 2000 MB/sec
• 2 x SDCard
• 1x Sata

Here are some comparisons of various configs:

• 68030@50 = 11 points
• 68060@66 = 65 points
• Vampire 2 (A600) is = 68060@140 = 140 points
• High end vampire will be = 400 points

The performance of the high end PERFORMANCE card is equivalent to a 400Mhz 68060 speed or 2000Mhz 68030 speed!

The High end Vampire will be available for the A1200 and the standalone version. The high end version will be a CPU module that can be added to the baseboard so upgradeability is a great option. It will rival the Power PC for performance with the same video and browsing capabilities. We expect the price point to be much lower than a PPC at ~500 Euro. ( subject to national disasters etc). The Vampire will graduate to a much higher level than the older 68K accelerators to provide performance that you would expect in a much more powerful PC at a fraction of the cost.

Our question is, If you wanted to buy one or both of the A1200 Vampire boards, be it a standard Vampire board for your A1200 or aa high performance A1200 board or standalone board, which board would you purchase...

1. The 128mb regular Vampire with same specs as the a600
2. The high Performance Vampire
3. The High performance standalone board
4. Buy both option 2 and 3 (a1200 high performance and standalone)

[-Acid-]

High performance Vampire for me as it would make daily web browsing, video playing and console emulation etc a more plausible possibility. Any chance of adding multiple sata connectors?, two to four would be much better. Are there any plans for an A4000 version in the future?

[hUMUNGUs]

I want one for the Amiga 1200. And a standalone system would be awesome. With NET, USB, 2xSATA, the whole nine yards :-)

[demolition]

Hard to choose - I might go for both. The standalone should then be designed to fit in the new AMIGA CASE on Indiegogo, e.g. ITX form factor. However I'm afraid that being a standalone product it might lose some 'Amiga-ness', so having it as an accelerator for a real Amiga as well might feel better.

Reason I am in to Amigas is because I can now afford to get stuff that I only dreamed about when I was younger. Being able to watch Youtube on the Amiga is not one of those dreams.

i'm in for a standalone.
keep up the good work apollo team.

[Lord Aga]

Standalone Complex !



I would invest in a new system (hopefully standard case compatible). No matter how good the accelerator card might be, the old A1200 mobos are a liability.

[khph_re]

Low end, I don't use my Amiga for 3d rendering anymore, so 060 Demo scene stuff and some browsing is what I need it for.

I would buy The high performance board ( V1200 ). And for me to consider the standalone it has to have :
1.) USB
2.) NIC ( minimum 100 Mbit )
3.) SATA
4.) Native screen modes in SATA over HDMI + Full HD RTG.

[jezry]

I would consider the standalone board.

[Adrian Browne]

I'd consider the standalone board- that said, such a board would sell better if it came fitted in a case- can ye do a deal with the manufacturers of the new A1200 cases perhaps? Otherwise I feel you would be targeting an even smaller niche hobby group- not everyone wants to mess around with a naked board.

[SortedGeeza]

I'd still love a V2 for my A600, i'd also be interested in the A1200 high performance vampire. :-)

[ptyerman]

The A1200 version, the stand alone version holds no interest for me at the moment, although that may change in the future.

[Romanujan]

I would most likely buy the regular A1200 version and a high-end standalone And I would really like to have a Poseidon-visible USB in the standalone version and some WPA WiFi capability... It would be best, if it could replave A1200 motherboard in the A1200 case (both original and the crowdfunding projects).

[amigasith]

The only Vampire I would buy is the high-performance one that goes into the A1200. The standalone version is simply not Amiga-ish enough for me...

[IanP]

I voted for high performance A1200 Vampire as it's a plug and play solution where as the stand alone is something of an unknown quantity at this point. I can't really justify getting both so had to pick one and went with the one I new what I'd be getting.

[nogginthenog]

Any chance of an A4000 version :-)

[Marcuz]

I would like to ask a clarification, as I'm new to the HW, except for a basic A1200 stashed somewhere in a closet: the standalone Vampire will come only as a A1200 board, right? With everything needed to go except its case?
But not as a A600 board, correct?

If this is not the place to ask, can you please point me to the correct thread, or a page about it?

Thanks!

[Zetr0]

Interesting, very VERY Interesting!

There is a fair bit to discuss here so clicking the "Go Advanced" button

Originally Posted by Kipper2k

Our question is, If you wanted to buy one or both of the A1200 Vampire boards, be it a standard Vampire board for your A1200 or aa high performance A1200 board or standalone board, which board would you purchase...

The 128mb regular Vampire with same specs as the a600
The high Performance Vampire
The High performance standalone board
Buy both option 2 and 3 (a1200 high performance and standalone)

Okay my friend, first I have to say that the Vampire 2 for the A600 is truly a game changer! it is THAT GOOD!

My friends have seen this and they want one as well, so very soon expect a sale request for two V2 A600's - not to mention a further two A500 versions when they are complete my friend - will email you soon on that.

If anyone reading this thread hasn't got one - you need to go get it NOW... don't worry I will wait until you get back... go on...


welcome back...

______________________________________________________

Now the A1200 Vampire series - this is quite moment to consider so here are my thoughts.

In an nut shell 1, then 2 and perhaps 3

I would humbly suggest bringing out two A1200 versions, a low cost Vampire 2 (based around the current A600 version) to essentially spank the competition into extreme submission and a hyper hi-performance card that takes the A1200 to the extreme -

With this you can continue with a revenue stream from cheaper cards to help fund the high performance and stand-alone card. For what I see once you have a tangible high-performace / standalone product this can be translated to the A3000 / A4000 and open up the market for exceptionally high performance adaptors.

Entry Level V's Top Range _______________

For me, and I suspect a lot in general, it will come down to a price point.

A Vampire 2 for my A1200 with continuing support the feature rich MicroSD / Picasso RTG / SAGA / FPU and the potential Paula (Sound) upgrade - under €200 is a steal - an epic EPIC win indeed!

And this in itself would give my BPPC/Bvision setup a real RUN for its money and it less than a 3rd the cost.

Added Value at Added Cost ________________

Moving up the scale to a hyper performance, we are engaging those that use their Amiga for every day tasks, at the risk of being beaten to death by the trolls - I don't use my Amiga for every day tasks, I have plenty of cheap PC's floating around that can do it better and faster (Web Browsing etc).

So the question I have is "Would I buy a €500 adaptor for any of my Amiga's" ?

If any I would say YES for the A3000 - this would have a caveat though, I would expect quite a bit more from the adaptor - I know its not fair really considering the impressive price performance of the Vampire 2 on the A600 - so its a bit of a victim of its own success -

Price Points ____________________________

As you have stated it will have nearly 3 times the processing power of the Vampire V2 which is incredibly impressive, with 10 times the memory is amazing - but is that enough ?

At this €500 price point I would like additional connectivity either 10/100 LAN and or USB 2.0 - would that be enough ....

CPU : (060@400MHz) ( [ Show youtube player ])
RAM : 1024MB
MSD : MicroSD Storage
GFX : Picasso RTG Mode
GFX : SAGA Mode

CON : 1x RJ45 10/100 NIC
CON : 2x USB 2.0

Indeed, its worth the price point, but could I justify it when my collection has a 200MHz BPPC/BVision as well as an 80MHz Apollo 060 - probably not to be honest - but I would definitely get a low cost version for the A1200.

Final Thoughts _________________________

Now, if you can give me the above High Performance Vampire for the A3000 / A4000 - then I would assuredly be buying one of those without reserve =D

[HardStep]

Voted Buy both option 3 and 4.

Even bare fpga CPU+fastmem board would be awesome, to keep AGA and real Amiga feel for some.

[happymondays]

Due to the aging of currently available base hardware, I would go for the standalone, but I might also buy one for my A1200, just in case.