Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by NLS

I may be able to help about Greece.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. I'm happy to give as much or as little credit as people would like.

[NLS]

I saw much info that needs cleaning up.

[wiz12]

Is there much of a difference between a 68060 Rev 4 and Rev 6? Can the Rev 4 be clocked as high as the Rev 6 with adequate cooling of course?

[Daedalus]

The Rev 6 CPU is the most sought after as it's the most overclockable. This is down to it having a process shrink, reducing power requirements over all previous revisions, allowing it to run faster. So you're unlikely to get any previous revisions running as fast as a Rev 6. All 68060 revisions should be overclockable to some degree however - even the Rev 1 can run at 66MHz just fine with adequate cooling. Some people have managed to get earlier revisions as high as 75 or 80MHz, but the Rev 6 is supposed to run happily at 100MHz or even higher.

[wiz12]

Usually these 060's have a MC at the beginning right? but I've also seen other versions such as XC68060RC50A, are these still valid Motorola part numbers? what does the XC and A mean?

[Thomas Richter]

Actually, they usually have an XC at the beginning, only the very latest masks have an MC. XC are the "early eXperimental" masks. Motorola qualified a part as MC only after a long period once they where confident that no new defects would be found. Most masks you find today are therefore XC parts. This is not different for the 68040 where most chips in the wild are only marked as XC and not as MC.

[Akiko]

If you put a 68882 FPU and crystal into a memory or 030 accelerator card, do you need any libraries installed to enable the FPU?

Also if you overclock something like a 68060 which has a built in FPU , does the FPU also overclock to match?

[rabidgerry]

What is setpatch?

Why would I need it?

How would I use it?

[-Acid-]

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

What is setpatch?

Why would I need it?

How would I use it?

It fixes bugs/errors in the kickstart roms at boot up. It's ran early on in WorkBench's startup sequence.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Akiko

If you put a 68882 FPU and crystal into a memory or 030 accelerator card, do you need any libraries installed to enable the FPU?

No, no special libraries are required.

Also if you overclock something like a 68060 which has a built in FPU , does the FPU also overclock to match?

Yes, the FPU runs off the same clock as the CPU.

Originally Posted by rabidgerry

What is setpatch?

Why would I need it?

How would I use it?

In addition to the bugfixes answer above, Setpatch has a few other jobs to do. On AGA Amigas, Setpatch enables the AGA modes of the chipset (for compatibility with older software, AGA Amigas by default boot in ECS-compatible mode). It loads any CPU-specific libraries that may be required (e.g. 68040.library), and enables CPU caches if relevant. And it also plays a key part in booting OS 3.9 as it replaces many of the 3.1 ROM modules with the 3.9 modules loaded from hard drive.

If you run Setpatch in a Shell window, it will give you a complete list of all the patches it has applied.

[quantum8]

Originally Posted by wiz12

Is there much of a difference between a 68060 Rev 4 and Rev 6? Can the Rev 4 be clocked as high as the Rev 6 with adequate cooling of course?

If it has the MC prefix and is a rev 4, there will be no FPU. It'll most likely be a "re-badged" CPU to try and fake that it's not an LC version.



There will be a few XC prefix rev 4 floating around but they're not that common.



The rev 5 uses a smaller die process (0.42um vs 0.60um), which means less heat is generated internally, so that's why you can achieve a higher clock rate with the rev 5 and 6.

[wiz12]

Can the Rev 5 go as fast as the Rev 6, again with suitable cooling?

[nogginthenog]

My 1996 (ish) XC68060:

MyCpu060 V1.7 reports: 68060MC Mask 0-1f43G,2f43G-0g65V Revision 1

Cool. Revision 1

[quantum8]

Originally Posted by wiz12

Can the Rev 5 go as fast as the Rev 6, again with suitable cooling?

The quick answer: no.


Even with rev 6 CPUs you're not guaranteed to reach the maximum available MHz option in the warp or TF overclock tool due to manufacturing differences so keep that in mind too.

[van_dammesque]

Talking of OC'ing 680x0, has anyone tried watercooling for the max. possible OC?

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by van_dammesque

Talking of OC'ing 680x0, has anyone tried watercooling for the max. possible OC?

I'd be also interested to know if there's suitable heatsinks for these CPUs?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by wiz12

I'd be also interested to know if there's suitable heatsinks for these CPUs?

486 heatsinks are a close match.

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by Jope

486 heatsinks are a close match.

When it comes to attaching the heatsink, would thermal adhesive or compound be recommended?

[Jope]

You don't need to hunt down a 486 heatsink if you are looking at gluing it on.

I'm guessing an adhesive thermal transfer pad would be the way to go here, but I don't have good data on that. At least it is more convenient than thermal transfer glue.

[wiz12]

Originally Posted by Jope

You don't need to hunt down a 486 heatsink if you are looking at gluing it on.

I'm guessing an adhesive thermal transfer pad would be the way to go here, but I don't have good data on that. At least it is more convenient than thermal transfer glue.

Yes, ideally the heatsink should be removable and those pads sound like a good idea. Are they self adhesive or require clips to hold in place?