A500 Classic520 Review

kjmann14 · 14 November 2019, 22:28

Well,I just got my Classic520 in the mail the other day and I have to say that this is probably one of the BEST accelerator solutions I've ever seen.

This Board gives your A500....
1. Motorola 68EC020 @ 28mhz
2. 8 Megs of Fast Ram
3. Flash Rom ability
4. CF card slot for bootable HDD support
5. SD card Slot Hot Swapable with FAT32 Support
6. 40pin IDE support for CDrom Option

It's fast and smooth. booted right up from my already existing CF card (Originally made for the HC508)
Games run great and WHDload Compatibility is awesome.

Price for the USA was about $202.00 shipped.
Well worth the money in my opinion.

LezRed · 18 November 2019, 13:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjmann14

Well,I just got my Classic520 in the mail the other day and I have to say that this is probably one of the BEST accelerator solutions I've ever seen.

This Board gives your A500....
1. Motorola 68EC020 @ 28mhz
2. 8 Megs of Fast Ram
3. Flash Rom ability
4. CF card slot for bootable HDD support
5. SD card Slot Hot Swapable with FAT32 Support
6. 40pin IDE support for CDrom Option

It's fast and smooth. booted right up from my already existing CF card (Originally made for the HC508)
Games run great and WHDload Compatibility is awesome.

Price for the USA was about $202.00 shipped.
Well worth the money in my opinion.

Sounds like you got yourself a good device. I've just returned to physical Amiga ownership and couldn't decide between this and the ACA 500plus. In the end I went with the 500plus as built in Action Replay really appealed for some reason (it was one bit of kit I never owned but wanted back in the early 90's.) and I decided I can choose to add a faster ACA accelerator and network card later if I really get back into it past playing the usual platformers and pinball games.

...but having a 020 @ 28MHZ and 8GB out the box makes the 520Classic a perfect device for the vast majority of WHDLoad OCS/ECS games as far as I am concerned. I suspect there are only a couple where a faster CPU is needed - it must be about as quick as a stock Amiga 3000. Are you planning to make or get a case for it?

kjmann14 · 18 November 2019, 15:29

Well, it out runs an Amiga 3000 by about 20%. I'm pleased with the performance. Obliterator by psygnosis runs great.
I'm looking for a case for it, but haven't found anyone selling one yet.

lord of time · 18 November 2019, 17:07

looks like a nice device - bit of a missed opertunity with ram... if it had the full 020 they could add way more ram than 8meg abit like the TF330 for the CD32! but still for the money and ease of use a nice step up for the trusty 500!!!

LezRed · 18 November 2019, 17:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord of time

looks like a nice device - bit of a missed opertunity with ram... if it had the full 020 they could add way more ram than 8meg abit like the TF330 for the CD32! but still for the money and ease of use a nice step up for the trusty 500!!!

Humour me, what do you run that needs more than 8MB fast RAM? Surely there are no games that can use more, are there?

Jope · 18 November 2019, 17:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by LezRed

Humour me, what do you run that needs more than 8MB fast RAM? Surely there are no games that can use more, are there?

Multi disk adventure games run under WHDLoad need quite a bit of RAM for the preload. Without preload you get really slow loading and a lot of blinking as WHDLoad switches multitasking on and off..

Of course these can be HD installed without WHDLoad, sometimes they even work on an expanded Amiga. :-)

kjmann14 · 18 November 2019, 17:51

Well the only game that I have personally seen that 8meg is not enough for is, Beneath A Steel Sky (a 12 disk game).

Bren McGuire · 18 November 2019, 17:53

You can install that without WHDLoad and it would run fine.
Also there's JOTD's CD32Load which doesn't do "blinking".

kjmann14 · 18 November 2019, 17:57

Does CD32Load work on a non-AGA machine?

lesta_smsc · 18 November 2019, 18:04

Would be nice to see a SysInfo screen of the hardware

UPDATE: Ignore that, it is here : http://irixlabs.com/c520

Not bad at all. Considering the price, most A500 accelerators are around the £150 or so mark?

kjmann14 · 18 November 2019, 18:10

Here you go....

Oops, sorry. I was a little slow posting this. =)

LezRed · 18 November 2019, 18:22

Very nice

What's the disk through-put rate on the SD card come out at?

I've just taken delivery of a new PSU, my ACA500 plus now seems to stable on my 500+ at 42MHz - on the original PSU it usually failed to load WB (probably needed new caps).

I'm now getting 3369 Dhrystones / 3.51 Mips and almost 3.8MB/s disk throughput in Sysinfo. Not as quick as your 520 but it's quicker than my old A1200 with fast ram back in the day so I'm pleased

kjmann14 · 18 November 2019, 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by LezRed

What's the disk through-put rate on the SD card come out at?

Not sure. I'll check tonight after work.

lord of time · 18 November 2019, 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by LezRed

Humour me, what do you run that needs more than 8MB fast RAM? Surely there are no games that can use more, are there?

Nothing - just saying that if your going that far you may as well have the extra becasue why the hell not!

kjmann14 · 19 November 2019, 04:14

Disk speed according to SysInfo

jbilander · 19 November 2019, 11:40

Picture on product site shows IDE drive speed of ~5.5 and youtube video ~6.5 so you should be able to crank it up significantly from your ~3.3 reading. This probably involves using the 512k FlashROM on card. Normally in WB 3.1 you load ROM into Fast RAM by typing the CPU FastROM command in Shell or add in Startup-Sequence but I think that command requires a MMU which an 020-processor doesn't have built-in. SD-card speed is fine though.

LezRed · 19 November 2019, 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord of time

Nothing - just saying that if your going that far you may as well have the extra becasue why the hell not!

I can't fault that logic, it's the sort of thing that affirms why I should invest in an ACA 1233n to occupy the upgrade slot on my ACA 500plus...

...I really should have just got a 520classic, better for the bank account

Dynamic_Computi · 25 November 2019, 06:57

I just put up a video review of the 520 Classic on my 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast channel yesterday. Take a look if you want to see what it can do!
[ Show youtube player ]

Jope · 25 November 2019, 07:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynamic_Computi

I just put up a video review of the 520 Classic on my 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast channel yesterday. Take a look if you want to see what it can do!
[ Show youtube player ]

Youtubers: please advertise your channels in the existing thread about your channel. I see you already posted this there, that should suffice. Good luck with your viewer/subscriber count.

Please discuss in text on support.Hardware and avoid linking to external sites which will probably disappear before EAB does.

Thanks.

14 November 2019, 22:28	#1
kjmann14 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 121	A500 Classic520 Review Well,I just got my Classic520 in the mail the other day and I have to say that this is probably one of the BEST accelerator solutions I've ever seen. This Board gives your A500.... 1. Motorola 68EC020 @ 28mhz 2. 8 Megs of Fast Ram 3. Flash Rom ability 4. CF card slot for bootable HDD support 5. SD card Slot Hot Swapable with FAT32 Support 6. 40pin IDE support for CDrom Option It's fast and smooth. booted right up from my already existing CF card (Originally made for the HC508) Games run great and WHDload Compatibility is awesome. Price for the USA was about $202.00 shipped. Well worth the money in my opinion. Last edited by kjmann14; 14 November 2019 at 22:37.

18 November 2019, 18:10	#11
kjmann14 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 121	Here you go.... Oops, sorry. I was a little slow posting this. =) Attached Thumbnails

19 November 2019, 04:14	#15
kjmann14 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 121	Disk speed according to SysInfo Attached Thumbnails

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18 November 2019, 15:29	#3
kjmann14 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 121	Well, it out runs an Amiga 3000 by about 20%. I'm pleased with the performance. Obliterator by psygnosis runs great. I'm looking for a case for it, but haven't found anyone selling one yet.

18 November 2019, 17:07	#4
lord of time Banned Join Date: Mar 2016 Location: wolverhampton Posts: 153	looks like a nice device - bit of a missed opertunity with ram... if it had the full 020 they could add way more ram than 8meg abit like the TF330 for the CD32! but still for the money and ease of use a nice step up for the trusty 500!!!

18 November 2019, 17:51	#7
kjmann14 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 121	Well the only game that I have personally seen that 8meg is not enough for is, Beneath A Steel Sky (a 12 disk game).

18 November 2019, 17:53	#8
Bren McGuire Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Croydon Posts: 580	You can install that without WHDLoad and it would run fine. Also there's JOTD's CD32Load which doesn't do "blinking".

18 November 2019, 17:57	#9
kjmann14 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Texas, USA Posts: 121	Does CD32Load work on a non-AGA machine?

18 November 2019, 18:04	#10
lesta_smsc Registered User Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,174	Would be nice to see a SysInfo screen of the hardware UPDATE: Ignore that, it is here : http://irixlabs.com/c520 Not bad at all. Considering the price, most A500 accelerators are around the £150 or so mark?

18 November 2019, 18:22	#12
LezRed Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Buckinghamshire, England Posts: 30	Very nice What's the disk through-put rate on the SD card come out at? I've just taken delivery of a new PSU, my ACA500 plus now seems to stable on my 500+ at 42MHz - on the original PSU it usually failed to load WB (probably needed new caps). I'm now getting 3369 Dhrystones / 3.51 Mips and almost 3.8MB/s disk throughput in Sysinfo. Not as quick as your 520 but it's quicker than my old A1200 with fast ram back in the day so I'm pleased

19 November 2019, 11:40	#16
jbilander Registered User Join Date: Jun 2018 Location: Stockholm Age: 48 Posts: 265	Picture on product site shows IDE drive speed of ~5.5 and youtube video ~6.5 so you should be able to crank it up significantly from your ~3.3 reading. This probably involves using the 512k FlashROM on card. Normally in WB 3.1 you load ROM into Fast RAM by typing the CPU FastROM command in Shell or add in Startup-Sequence but I think that command requires a MMU which an 020-processor doesn't have built-in. SD-card speed is fine though.

25 November 2019, 06:57	#18
Dynamic_Computi 10MARC Join Date: Jul 2018 Location: Tucson, AZ, USA Posts: 214	I just put up a video review of the 520 Classic on my 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast channel yesterday. Take a look if you want to see what it can do! [ Show youtube player ]

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