Best Options for Maxing out A3000 RAM?

[Warty]

I have a A3000 with 5 MB (2 chip). What are my best options at this point for getting up to 2+16?

It looks like Stefano hasn't been making his ZIP adapter for a few months:
https://www.amibay.com/showthread.ph...-A3000D/page33

Some eBay items (what are people's experience with these? Do they tend to be in working condition? are we taking 50/50 shot at them being not-what-they-are-advertised-as?)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/40178729236...AAAOSwqYBWobeD

https://www.ebay.com/itm/20316682698...YAAOSwcLxYEC6j

https://www.ebay.com/itm/372247293042

https://www.ebay.com/itm/16414877490...oAAOSwIOdeh2qV

[Jope]

I have bought from GGLabs and the chips worked in my A3000. :-)

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Warty

Some eBay items (what are people's experience with these? Do they tend to be in working condition? are we taking 50/50 shot at them being not-what-they-are-advertised-as?)

I haven't dealt with those particular eBay vendors, but my general experience has been:-

1. Never buy from a vendor with less than 99% positive feedback.

2. "New, good quality" means "used, fake".

3. The cheaper offers are 'fake' at least 50% of the time.

4. Less popular products are more likely to be genuine.

5. Vendors outside of Asia are generally more trustworthy.

'Fake' means the original labeling has been sanded off and replaced with what the refurbisher thought would make it sell better (more popular brand, higher speed etc.). About 50% of the time it is close enough, but sometimes the part number is totally wrong. For example I purchased some 'MCM2114' 1kx4 RAM chips that turned out to be LED drivers with a similar part number, and some '20MHz CMOS' Z80's that were actually Sharp LH0080A's (4MHz NMOS Z80).

The idiots who do this don't seem to realize that guaranteed original chips are far more valuable even if they are a slower speed or a lesser known brand, and we don't mind if they have a few scratches or slightly bent pins after being pulled from old circuit boards! They go to a lot of trouble to make old chips look like new and then nobody wants to buy from them because they can't be trusted.

Sometimes you can tell from the photo that a chip has been remarked, either by the telltale signs or because nobody laser etched part numbers in the 1980's! But some are very convincing, and you don't know if the photo is of the actual product or pinched from some other site.

So my ranking is:-

1. gglabs - high confidence. Buy these!

2. 5hk1584 - medium confidence (image not sharp enough to tell if fake)

3. chipsgate - medium confidence (image not clear, other products smell of fakery)

4. joma0818 - low confidence (poor rating, but at least they admit the parts are 'refurbished')

[Jope]

It is very difficult to get original chips in 2021, unless you know the item you're buying has never gone back to china since it was manufactured.

I have no idea whether GGLabs' chips are genuine Static Column either. At least my A3000 does not work in SC mode, but I have a mixture of chips installed, some old, some GGLabs, so no idea which ones are REALLY SC and which ones are not. I seem to remember checking the part numbers on all of them and they were all marked as SC. Would have to strip down the machine to a barebones setup and test them one bank at a time.

[Warty]

Good stuff, thanks Folks. I'll have to start counting my pennies...

[Warty]

A little follow-up in case anyone is looking for A3000 memory:
- the GGLabs one came in under a week, and, from part numbers, are static column. I don't know how to test that though. The 4MB in the machine originally was also static column, same part/manufacturer, but 80ns, and GGlabs ones were 60ns.
- I also ordered 10 MB from 5hk1584 (came to same price; wanted a couple extra chips in case of failure). This only took about 2 weeks. These are page, not column. I moved the existing ones around so that the page memory could come first. Machine starts up fine with no other adjustments, and shows 15.5 Fast (this is a superkickstart A3000, so 0.5 went to ROM).

So: both were good, with quick shipping, and were as advertised. You do get the faster static column RAM from GGLabs, but it's more than 2x the cost.

[nelsn68k]

I bought my Ram from UTSource. The full 16MB cost about 50€. Plus customs and shipping. All work.

[matt3k]

Recommend ZIPP memory over the SIMM adapters, SC 60NS ZIPPS is sweet.

Use speedgeeks ramsey program to turn on SC mode. Note that is you have an 040/060 board it will not give you any performance boost with the ramsey modes, even though it says enabled by the program it doesn't work. Easiest way to test is to run memory speed programs.

A good resource for the 3000:

https://www.amibay.com/showthread.ph...ster-and-Refit

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by Warty

I have a A3000 with 5 MB (2 chip). What are my best options at this point for getting up to 2+16?

It looks like Stefano hasn't been making his ZIP adapter for a few months:
https://www.amibay.com/showthread.ph...-A3000D/page33

Some eBay items (what are people's experience with these? Do they tend to be in working condition? are we taking 50/50 shot at them being not-what-they-are-advertised-as?)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/40178729236...AAAOSwqYBWobeD

https://www.ebay.com/itm/20316682698...YAAOSwcLxYEC6j

https://www.ebay.com/itm/372247293042

https://www.ebay.com/itm/16414877490...oAAOSwIOdeh2qV

I’m using Z3 RAM on my A4000. Will work on a A3000. But I have 256MB of FastRAM

Individual computers sell it as “BIG RAM PLUS”,

https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...igramplus.html

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by Jpor

I’m using Z3 RAM on my A4000. Will work on a A3000. But I have 256MB of FastRAM

Individual computers sell it as “BIG RAM PLUS”,

https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...igramplus.html

Yes Z3 ram works but it's slower than ZIPs.

[Jpor]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Yes Z3 ram works but it's slower than ZIPs.

I understand that. But what are you using in your A3000 to justify the speed? Also what are the price of ZIP RAM and amount compared to the price of 256MB RAM (Slower) of Z3?

Just food for thought

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by DarrenHD

Yes Z3 ram works but it's slower than ZIPs.

Howdy, old-ish thread, but not that ancient yet.
About BigRamPlus, can you combine it with zipram on the motherboard, and what does the system see if you have fully populated Zip-ram then add a Z3 BigRamPlus card?
Also.. Performance comparisons, etc?

[Leon Besson]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Howdy, old-ish thread, but not that ancient yet.
About BigRamPlus, can you combine it with zipram on the motherboard, and what does the system see if you have fully populated Zip-ram then add a Z3 BigRamPlus card?
Also.. Performance comparisons, etc?

On the A4K (I know it’s not a A3K), the BigRAM Plus is shown with both the FastRAM (16MB on the mainboard) and the 128MB of RAM on the Cyberstorm.
So I have roughly 400MB Fast in total
I’m also guessing you can add another BigRAM plus to go even more.

Not done any speed comparison. I’m guessing the Zip RAM on the A3K is also dependent on speed of RAM.

[Channel-Z]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Howdy, old-ish thread, but not that ancient yet.
About BigRamPlus, can you combine it with zipram on the motherboard, and what does the system see if you have fully populated Zip-ram then add a Z3 BigRamPlus card?
Also.. Performance comparisons, etc?

I have Bigram in A3000 and A4000 and it's exactly the same with 16Mb onboard ram, so it sees 16Mb + 256Mb fast ram.

[Snoopy1234]

The A3000 can only do 8Mb on the Zorro bus as Zorro II without conflicts. Z3 processor cards are available. I sold my Bigram+ 256MB because I thought it was overkill. A good card though with DMA speed if you have a Superbuster 11 installed otherwise Z2 speeds on an A3000. I currently have 16MB populated with +8mb on a TBC card.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Snoopy1234

The A3000 can only do 8Mb on the Zorro bus as Zorro II without conflicts.

This applies to all Amigas.

Z3 processor cards are available.

Not really, they go in the fast slot. The A3000 has Z3 regardless of whether you use the motherboard CPU or a fast slot CPU.

[trixster]

Z3 ram is about 9MB/s tops, motherboard ram is maybe 14MB/s, and accelerator ram is anything from 30-90MB/s depending on the board and the cpu used

[Jope]

And Z2 RAM is around 3.5MB/s, the A3000's SCSI can probably DMA to mobo RAM faster if you have a suitable storage device connected. :-)

[Snoopy1234]

Originally Posted by Jope

This applies to all Amigas.



Not really, they go in the fast slot. The A3000 has Z3 regardless of whether you use the motherboard CPU or a fast slot CPU.

Thanks for the heads up. Bigram+ is referred to as a Z3 card or at least used to be. My mistake though, I was thinking of the cheap new RTG card now available.

[eXeler0]

Thanx for all interesting answers.
I dont have superbuster 11 in my A3000, only inte A4000. (its v9 in the A3k)
What sort of performance scenario does one get IRL when mixing RAM with such variying performance?
Is it a case where you get a performance roller coastervride dependingbon where in menory Cpu is accessing at any given time and also, dors it matter on a slow 030?
The zip-RAM itself was supposed to be 50ns but I don’t thinknit actually is. More like rebranded 70ns.