A3630 vs A3640 change or not?

[mechy]

I tend to favor the A3640 but I'm biased since my A3640 now gives a WarpEngine a good run for the money. (Some extra memory would be nice though).

Even if you get close on ram speed(which motherboard ram is still slow),your still missing the nice warpengine scsi and the 64 or 128MB capability.. its way faster than the 4k motherboard ide. it can get close to 10MB/s.
The warp engine is way better than any 3640,overclocked or not.
the pals/gals on the 3640 run so hot they can near burn you lol. i imagine at 40mhz they are nice and warm(are yours heatsinked?). Also the cut the jumper/delay line hack delays access to ram if memory serves(pun intended) and you are still always accessing motherboard ram with delays,unlike the warpengine with proper ram.
Not to mention most all the 3640's rev 3 and 3.1(and some 3.2's are STILL wrong) need capacitors soldered correctly,some are usually backwards.i've fixed many that caps have leaked on and have eaten traces.

Is your 040 chip a 33 or 40mhz part? (sorry to hijackthis thread).

Like heiroglyph said,its a great upgrade if its cheap though, sure beats 030/25

as far as 040's go,the warp engine is one of the best,most reliable boards around.

mech

[SpeedGeek]

@mechy
 
Yes, motherboard fast memory is still slower than WarpEngine memory. I managed to get 19-20 MB/sec with PAL/GAL mods.* (I have plans for a motherboard SRAM project which will be faster than WarpEngine memory). My A3000 does 3-3.5 MB/sec SCSI I and I'm satisfied with that. The PAL/GAL's may run a little warmer but they can tolerate it since their rated to run at 50 Mhz min.
 
The Delay Line hack does not delay memory access it just compensates for higher clock speeds. What actually delays memory access (and other motherboard resources) is the sloppy state machine logic which adds 2 wait states to every bus cycle. *I fixed this and thats how I get the results above.
 
My A3640 is a rev 3.2 and has the caps installed correctly. It has the original 25 Mhz MC68040 overclocked with cooling fan. The WarpEngine will also add synchronization delays to motherboard resources if it runs at a different clock speed than the motherboard. My A3640 runs synchronous the motherboard and avoids these delays

[mechy]

The delays on the warp engine wouldn't really matter if all the fast ram is on the warpengine,which is the way to go. Do you refer to delays to the zorro/ecs/aga? these probabaly wouldnt be much of a concern.

Static column zips in the 3000 is a small speed increase.. 10-20% i think. but if i recall there was a bug that claimed you had to use a pagemode zip chip in the first bank when using the A3640? i found this was not true on all motherboard and then you could also use speed Ramsey.

Do you have a really slow drive on the 3000? The rev 8 wd scsi chip would give you the full scsi 2 command set and help a bit? i should think you would get better than that in synchronous mode? you must not use big files or do much with this machine if 16Mb and a slow drive is keeping you happy? The cyberstorm MKIII and PPC cards will spoil you with 25MB/s + UWscsi speeds.

I would love to see the pal/gal mods, do you plan to share them? i am looking for the files for the 64MB A4000 motherboard hack.



mech

[Duce]

I would not spend a whole lot on a 3640.  Thankfully, they are quite common and cheap with people having gone to '060 and PPC, so for a small sum of money I would definitely upgrade to the '040 card.

Years ago, before I upgraded my A4000 to '060, I traded the '040 card for a '030 (both stock Commodore) and the guy threw in a 4091 to make up the difference.

While I enjoyed the SCSI card, I regretted the trade and I missed that '040 greatly, heh.  About 6 months after that I bought a gfx card and '060 for the machine.

[SpeedGeek]

@mechy
 
Synchronization delays add wait states when the WarpEngine (running at a different clock speed) would access any motherboard resource. This is not a factor in WarpEngine local fast memory but eventually the CPU has to access motherboard resources right? I already have the WD rev 8 SCSI chip in my A3000. The SCSI II command set does not change the SCSI I max transfer rate of 5 MB/sec and you still have a SCSI I hardware interface on this chip. Even if you have a 5 MB/sec hard drive SuperDMAC and SuperBuster will limit transfers to approx 3.5 MB/sec. This could be increased a little with a 30 Mhz overclock but I have to run them at 20 Mhz to maintain a sychronous relationship.
 
Most accelerators do not support burst memory access to motherboard fast memory either because it requires a sychronous relationship to the motherboard (Ramsey) or a more complex state machine design. In any case Ramsey would only support Burst with static column RAM installed. So A4000 owners and A3000 owners with page mode memory could never use it anyway. The original rev 04 Ramsey does not have a "page detect bug" it simply lacks page mode support of any kind but works with page mode memory if burst and page mode are disabled. "SkipRamsey" doesn't work with an overclocked motherboard and you still need 60-70 ns DRAM. Rev 04 Ramsey does not support software skip mode but A3000's have a motherboard speed jumper to set this mode.
 
I never intended to hijack this thread and Q&A on my A3640 speedup mods should really be on this or the EAB thread:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=597580&postcount=9
Thanks!

[SpeedGeek]

@mechy
See this thread:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=777332#post777332
 
Do you still think I should give up my A3640 for a WarpEngine?

[matt3k]

Really impressive Speedgeek.

I would keep it, you have done great work.

I would also say that if anyone came across a Warp Engine 3040 or 4040, they should BUY ONE.  You plug them in and attach the clip to your CIA and your done.  Works stable at 40mhz, nice local mem access, and a kicken scsi ctrl.  It really does make your 3k or 4k feel all around much faster, and you don't have to hack anything.

[mechy]

@mechy
See this thread:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=777332#post777332
 
Do you still think I should give up my A3640 for a WarpEngine?

Yes i still recommend a warpengine if for nothing more than much faster local 128MB ram,Fast excellent scsi that works with almost anything and provides low cpu useage. being cripped at 16MB slow motherboard ram would do nothing for me.and dont forget almost all 3640's need caps fixed. most are leaking by now and most were installed backwards.

the benchmarks are all great and good but real world performance is what matters. You not even comparing your 3640 speeds to the warpengine 040/40.

If you somehow came close to it,you've still lost half the battle since you can't get stuff off the harddrive much quicker than 3MB/s(assuming A4000 ide)..A3000 a bit better and no cpu overhead .

don't get me wrong,you've done some excellent work here, and i am very interested in it. I hope to try it soon but i never seem to have time.

now how about a 64/128MB hack for the motherboard

mech

[Jeff]

now how about a 64/128MB hack for the motherboard

mech

Amigakit already did it with the ZorRam

[SpeedGeek]

@mechy
I had an even faster benchmark with 60 ns DRAM and Ramsey @ 4 clock cycles (24MB/sec fast memory). But I had to disable my 16MB bank select PAL leaving only 4MB of fast memory. Also only 1 of my 60 ns 16MB SIMM's was fast enough. I'm currently looking for a 50ns 16MB SIMM my young apprentice!
 
As far as the A4000 64MB hack Dave Haynie said exactly the same thing I said on comp.sys.amiga.hardware. But it won't work on the A3000 and he did not address the issue of where to map the extra 16MB banks. (Probably in RAMSLOT memory space if you want auto config or above RAMSLOT space with addmem config if you want to use WarpEngine local memory).
 
@Jeff
ZorRam is only 1/2 to 2/3 the speed of motherboard fast memory!

[mechy]

@mechy
I had an even faster benchmark with 60 ns DRAM and Ramsey @ 4 clock cycles (24MB/sec fast memory). But I had to disable my 16MB bank select PAL leaving only 4MB of fast memory. Also only 1 of my 60 ns 16MB SIMM's was fast enough. I'm currently looking for a 50ns 16MB SIMM my young apprentice!
 
As fast as the A4000 64MB hack Dave Haynie said exactly the same thing I said on comp.sys.amiga.hardware. But it won't work on the A3000 and he did not address the issue of where to map the extra 16MB banks. (Probably in RAMSLOT memory space if you want auto config or above RAMSLOT space with addmem config if you want to use WarpEngine local memory).
 
@Jeff
ZorRam is only 1/2 to 2/3 the speed of motherboard fast memory!

Finding 50ns ram can be tricky,but its out there.sadly 64MB simms in 50ns are easier to come by than a 16mb simm. the 64MB motherboard hack i suggested was for the A4000. i keep forgetting your on a 3000.Maybe its time to solder up a static ram simm

mech