Is this any good?

[chrispy]

Came across this and was wondering if it's any good for my 1200 i'm currently upgrading - Elsat E1204 4MB Fast Ram, it's £59.99. I'm looking to upgrade my 1200 to use the later OS's and all the games I currently own of course Appologies for all these questions by the way.

[Jimbo]

If its only fastram then no. You can get at least 8meg of fast with FPU for about £60-£70. Thats only if its only fastram. But its your money

I sold one of these for £75 couple of weeks back on fleabay:

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/gvp1208

Cheers

[chrispy]

What exactly should I be looking for?

[Jimbo]

Depends what you want, just a whdload machine with os3.9 then just an 8meg expansion will be fine. Which range between £60 and £70. If you want a faster A1200 like a 030 or more then you are looking at around £130+ but these cards take around 128meg of fast and allow you to play games such as doom and alien breed 3d etc.

My point is, is £59.99 for that 4meg is expensive.

[Retro-Nerd]

This is too much imho, you can get a M-Tec 1230 probably for £50, a normal 8 MB fastram expansion for £30-35.

[chrispy]

Ah Alien Breed 3D is the one game I haven't played. You mentioned an 030 board, is there any specific name for the board? I saw one board that was 8MB (Magnum I think) that had room for a 68882 fpu but he wants £100 for that which seems a bit steep for an 8MB upgrade.

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

This is too much imho, you can get a M-Tec 1230 probably for £50, a normal 8 MB fastram expansion for £30-35.

Would love to see this 8meg fastram for £30

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by chrispy

Ah Alien Breed 3D is the one game I haven't played. You mentioned an 030 board, is there any specific name for the board? I saw one board that was 8MB (Magnum I think) that had room for a 68882 fpu but he wants £100 for that which seems a bit steep for an 8MB upgrade.

Apollo or Blizzard cards are what people normally get. They go with 030 or 040 or 060's I think

[Retro-Nerd]

If you look on eBay only, then it's a problem. True.

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

If you look eBay only, then it's a problem. True.

Then why don't you tell this guy where he can look to get 8meg of fast ram for £30??

Or is it top secret

[Retro-Nerd]

No secret, ask here or in other retro-forums, Amibay. I think £35 would be a fair price for a 8MB fastram expansion.

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

No, ask here. Other retro-forums, Ami Bay. I think £35 would be a fair price for a 8MB fastram expansion.

Ok I have never seen one go for that on Amibay. I am not saying you are wrong. But I think either things have increased last few months or so. But at the moment 8meg is at least £60 plus. Hell if anyone has 8meg for £30 hit me a pm Easy profit on ebay at £75 a pop

But I could be wrong

[Retro-Nerd]

Yesterday somebody sold a Blizzard 1230 IV for 80€ in a German Retro Forum. Not all guys are greedy.

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Yesterday somebody sold a Blizzard 1230 IV for 80€ in a German Retro Forum. Not all guys are greedy.

Ok so bargains are out there as Retro-Nerd just showed us, you just need to be patient to get them. Otherwise be prepared to pay full whack.

I think thats pretty good advice

[Retro-Nerd]

Patience is a very good advice. A1200 fastram expansions are more rare than turbo cards these days. I would try to grab a M-Tec 1230 with 8 MB.

[chrispy]

Ok, one last question before I start a riot here lol, is there a site or even a faq that explains all the Amiga terminology and such like the differences between 030, 040 and 060 etc. That way I won't piss anyone off with my constant questions (not that i'm accusing you fine members of being pissed off).

Thanks in advance.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by chrispy

Ok, one last question before I start a riot here lol, is there a site or even a faq that explains all the Amiga terminology and such like the differences between 030, 040 and 060 etc. That way I won't piss anyone off with my constant questions (not that i'm accusing you fine members of being pissed off).

Thanks in advance.

Hey Chrispy, no ones going to be pissed off at you for asking questions, I don't know of an exact link but there many posts if you're keen to search the forum offering all kinds of advice.

The best thing I can say is that, most people come here and first they buy a Ram upgrade, to let them use WHDLoad and enjoy that for a few months.

If the interest is still there after that they upgrade to an 030 accelerator and if the interest is still there then the sky's the limit!

I bought and sold my Ram upgrades for £45, I think thats a fair price, I've seen them sell for £30 but thats a little bit rare in these days.

If you do pay £60 for a Ram expansion off ebay, you'll not have a problem selling it back on there at £60

Steve.

[chrispy]

Many thanks my friend. Maybe i'm looking to jump in too deep too quick so i'll start out with a ram upgrade I think. I know for a fact i'll still ahve the interest in a year or so's time but when the time comes to upgrade i'll do it in increments without skipping sections. Thanks to you both for your valued help and advice.

[Cammy]

I couldn't agree more with fitzsteve there. I started off with a 8MB RAM expansion and used that for several years before finally upgrading to the 030 with more RAM after I was addicted to Workbench and started doing much more involved work and development.

[Zetr0]

its all a case of numbers really

Consider a STOCK A1200 = 1.1MIPS

Adding FAST RAM = 2.5 - 2.8MIPS (pending brand)

020 @ 28Mhz = 5.4 MIPS
030 @ 25Mhz = 5.2 MIPS
030 @ 40Mhz = 7.8 MIPS
030 @ 50Mhz = 9.1 MIPS

The 030 is only a small revision and bug fix of the 020 CPU - so they perform quite close indeed for the frequency

040 @ 25Mhz = 18.1 MIPS
040 @ 33Mhz = 26.2 MIPS (pending brand might get a little more / less)
040 @ 40Mhz = 32.1 MIPS

The 040 cpu is a drastic increase in speed compared to the 020 and 030 accelerator adapters.

060 @ 50MHz = 65 MIPS
060 @ 66MHz = 84 MIPS
060 @ 80MHz = 98.7 MIPS

As you can see the 060 is in a complete different class again, and there are some models of 060 that can run as high as 100MHz - thats just purley phenominal!!!

however - you can expect to pay serious cash for that kind of "top" end performance.

Personally if you are looking to invest in an accelerator then a Blizzard Mk4 030 is a good start in the £130 - £150 area (yeah there are some that sell for more)

dont get me wrong either - for that kind of money there are better cards in my opinion - however the Blizzard 030 Mk4 is the most sought after accelerator card for the Amiga A1200 - its perhaps the best 030 accelerator on the market as it also holds it value unlike other cards. Not only does this card offer upto 128MB of ram onboard but also a the option of a VERY fast SCSI option.

This additional adapter will enable upto 10MB async read on a SCSI harddisk - although real world action will be about 6.6MB with about 30% CPU Load - compared to 2.1MB a second on the Native IDE at 100% CPU load is very impressive.


Personally, for me, with that kinda of money to invest I would plumb for an 040 - and although there are a small number of incompatabilites with some very old games - its an amazing power boost for the pennies.