dnetc benchmarks

[zylesea]

Is it possible to buy G4 processors new from anywhere these days?

Not talking about old mac's or whatever, but are there sources where factory new chips for a new computer design could be sourced, or is that a completely closed off option?

Freescale still sells 744x processors, e.g 7447A:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7447A&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab&nodeId=018rH38653&pspll=1&fromSearch=false

or 7448

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7448&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab&nodeId=018rH38653&pspll=1&fromSearch=false

Prices are high, but not completely nuts.

But G4 series rather shifted to the 86xx chip line - which unfortunately never made it into a GP computer..

[runequester]

Freescale still sells 744x processors, e.g 7447A:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7447A&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab&nodeId=018rH38653&pspll=1&fromSearch=false

or 7448

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7448&tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab&nodeId=018rH38653&pspll=1&fromSearch=false

Prices are high, but not completely nuts.

But G4 series rather shifted to the 86xx chip line - which unfortunately never made it into a GP computer..

So... would they have been an option for something like this?

Do we know what the cost difference is between that and the PA96 thingie?
In other words, would using those chips have saved cost significantly?

I guess what I am fishing for is.. how much of the computers cost is made up by the processor specifically?

[klx300r]

MOS and old Apple machines are better than AmigaOS 4 and any SAM/X1000.

YES SIR ! that's why I come to an Amiga site to hear about old Apple products and NOT new developments in AmigaOS and available hardware:roflmao:

[TheDaddy]

Linux on my dual core is better than MOS and old Apple machines.

But that's not really the point, is it?

It is. It's exactly the point of all these threads of the last few days.

It's to prove that MOS and old Apple machines (since there are no original MOS machines and people have to do with Apple's old products) and consequently my Win 7/Linux on my quad core 4.8GHz pc is faster than your Linux box. There is this raging, rabid desire to prove which one is better.
So yes the AmigaOne X1000 is slower than a mac mini. Oh and I forgot it's an overpriced piece of junk...same goes for the SAMs, it won't matter what is produced there will always be something better and faster.
ACube makes a dual core SAM..."but my Apple quad is way faster..."
OK we got it...

[Iggy]

The poor performance of the PA6T could shed new light on the whole ISA shift affair by Apple. I mean, the PA6T was (inofficially) the scheduled successor of the 744x in Apple's laptops. But it performs rather worse. Not well suited for a 7447A successor laptop. ibm hat no fitting offerings for Apple and Freescale's 86xx were also not the huge step forward. No wonder why Apple looked elsewhere eventually.
But okay, Apple would have had one huge advantage over AOS4 and the X1000, tOS X has SMP support, so a Powerbook PA6T would have benefited quite a lot from the 2nd core.

Anyway, from those historical what-if games I would like to see an benchmark between a PA6T and 8641D based system. It seems to me as if Freescale's chip would have been the better choice eventually. A shame it was not used in a GP computer back when it was current.

I spent a lot of time working with the MPC8640/8641 (I still have two in my parts bins).
But as the older G4s clock as high or higher AND used Macs are cheap, the 86XXs didn't look like a viable alternative.
And the PA6T should be able to clock higher than either the G4s or the MPCs.

Right now, I'm looking forward to the T5040 (and, if offered, T5010 and T5020).

Not quite as nice PCIe support (as the PA6T), but it should perform slightly better.

[takemehomegrandma]

Linux on my dual core is better than MOS and old Apple machines.

But that's not really the point, is it?

You are right, bringing in Linux into a comparison of "Amiga" operating systems would be pointless. The point (and what this is about) is comparing "Amiga" options...

[zylesea]

The 8640 would definitely had been an option. It is a rather expensive ship, but still way cheaper than teh PA6T according to some AEon information which was about 500 US$ for each PA6T.
Plus Freescale is really helpful, they are still intersted to get their products out to the wild (genesi had and have a good support by them), other than PA Semi which is a company swallowed by Apple.

The 8640 has one or two e600 cores (aka g4) as known from the 7447A (Mac mini) or 7448 (some 3rd party cpu cards for Powermac G4). But it has a fast bus. Well, not as fast as the PA6T bus, but still quite fast, RAM interface is 600MHz DDR2, FSB is 200MHz (PA6T RAM interface is 1066MHz DDR, FSB is 233MHz).
But the difference of system performance between a PA6T and 8640D systen is probably only little. 8640D has the big advanatge of a proven and known core and a company behind it supporting it still actively. I was always in favor of the 86xx chips.

[jorkany]

You are right, bringing in Linux into a comparison of "Amiga" operating systems would be pointless. The point (and what this is about) is comparing "Amiga" options...

It's not pointless for X1000 owners, after all Linux is the only way they can take advantage of the hardware built onto their machines.

[Iggy]

...there are no original MOS machines...

Pegasos I and II.
Perhaps you mean there is no new MorphOS specific machine available

...my Win 7/Linux on my quad core 4.8GHz pc is faster than your Linux box.

And my 3.6 GHz Quad core PC (while slower then yours) would also be faster, but that isn't the point.

[takemehomegrandma]

Also, to be fair, the PA6T is a very nice Soc with great PCIe support.

Would have made more sense if they hadn't sacrificed some of that feature to the XMOS chip, but instead used it for real PCIe...

[zylesea]

Iggy:

We are agreeing on these issues pretty much anyway. The 86xx would have been nice a few years ago. While I still think the 8610 would still be acceptable for a very compact and cost sensitive system (I suggested it as better alternative to Acubes choices in several threads for some years already), the 8640 is no longer a vialble path to follow, since the T50x0 is soon to arrive and will leave the 8640 ways beyond.

[zylesea]

Pegasos I and II.
Perhaps you mean there is no new MorphOS specific machine available

Plus Efika5200B. A shame it came with too little RAM and such a slow ide. But still a nice tiny board for little money ($99) a few years ago.

[TheDaddy]

@Iggy

>>Pegasos I and II.
>>Perhaps you mean there is no new MorphOS specific machine available

Yes that is what I meant.

>>And my 3.6 GHz Quad core PC (while slower then yours) would also be faster, but that isn't the point.

It is exactly the point. We are comparing different products designed for different Operating Systems, and there are at least three threads which have been started trying to underline exactly what I said above.
So I am saying MOS is good and OS4 is crap, old Apple machine is better than new X1000, because this is exactly what these threads are about.

[runequester]

You are right, bringing in Linux into a comparison of "Amiga" operating systems would be pointless. The point (and what this is about) is comparing "Amiga" options...

Throw amiWM on there and its as much amiga as anything else these days. Whether an app runs transparently or in emulation is not really relevant, since both are blazing fast nowadays anyways, and just about every 68K app has long since been surpassed by newer alternatives. (and in many cases, you have to. I love wordworth and final writer but they just aren't any competition to libreoffice if I actually need to interact with the rest of the world).

I have an amiga on my desk. It was made by Commodore in 1992. It has better compatibility, has wireless internet and didn't cost me a billion dollars.


All this bitching about the "NG" options might have made some sense in 1996. It was cute in 1999. In 2011, it's absurd.
We're arguing about whether it's better to pay huge sums of money for new hardware or scavenge ebay for old discarded apple computers?

And what's worse, we're seriously holding one of those options or the other up as a sound decision so we can deride the opposition?

Why would anyone that isn't bat**** insane ever invest here?

[commodorejohn]

The 8640 would definitely had been an option. It is a rather expensive ship, but still way cheaper than teh PA6T according to some AEon information which was about 500 US$ for each PA6T.

Can you provide a link to that information? $500 for a CPU (particularly one designed for embedded systems) is farkin' ridiculous, that's what P3s cost new in 1999. Hope they didn't pay that kind of cash for all the parts...

[Iggy]

@Iggy

>>Pegasos I and II.
>>Perhaps you mean there is no new MorphOS specific machine available

Yes that is what I meant.

>>And my 3.6 GHz Quad core PC (while slower then yours) would also be faster, but that isn't the point.

It is exactly the point. We are comparing different products designed for different Operating Systems, and there are at least three threads which have been started trying to underline exactly what I said above.
So I am saying MOS is good and OS4 is crap, old Apple machine is better than new X1000, because this is exactly what these threads are about.

Ah, gotcha.
While I'm impressed with the X1000, I don't understand the logic in producing it.
Zylesea, myself, and other looked into current PPCs awhile ago and came to a similar conclusion.
While they're attractive products, the cost of producing a small run of PPC based systems is way too high (believe it or not, I don't think Aeon is overpricing their system - it really cost a lot to produce).

So when the MOS development team decided to support Macs, I shelved the PPC projects.

I doesn't make sense to rely on expensive custom hardware when existing low cost hardware (that can perform as well) is available.

The funny thing is, I was talking to Varisys about an MPC8641/8640 based board with an ATI SB600 Southbridge before it was announced that they had designed the X1000 (which uses the same Southbridge).