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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: jcache on May 12, 2007, 12:18:23 AM
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Hi,
I have the chance of buying a blizzard 1230 MK IV for the amiga 1200.I was wondering if any people who use the card have any stability problems with it.
TIA.
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I've had no problems with mine.
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Blizzard 1230-IV is rock solid. Easily the best 030 class accelerator for A1200.
Unfortunately the prices reflect this too. So be aware, and don't pay insane amounts.
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love mine only had it for a couple of weeks poped 32mb for ram on it and it loads things a lot faster.
go for it if its a good price i payed £35 for mine but been seeing them on evilbay go for around £60 to £90 depending on the ram size
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=014&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=330110482698&rd=1&rd=1
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I have had mine in the Amiga for over 10 years and it works as good as it did when i first bought it
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get 040 it's quite much better.
I've 040 040mhz never noticed any real life difference to 060
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@utri007
Are you sure the 060 you are comparing it against is set up correctly? A 68060 delivers about 1.7x the integer performance of the 040 at the same clockspeed (according to freescale) for most object code. What's more, the slowest 060 used in any amiga as far as I know is 50MHz.
The only time you should see an 060 running at a comparable speed to previous 68K processors is when there is a problem, eg: caches not enabled properly, superscalar mode switched off, frequent slow emulation traps for unimplemented instructions, Execbase/VBR/other resources located in Chip RAM, etc.
Otherwise, the 68060 should outperform the 040 quite conspicuously.
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@utri007 : got BPPC with 040 and a BPPC with 060, the 060 one is about 3 times faster to boot the system, and for the apps much more !
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I have a Blizzard 1230 IV. It probably isnt the fastest card but I have never had a single problem with it.
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Used one of those for years before I got a 1260.
No problems at all.
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jcache,get that blizzard..it's one of the best turboboars for the miggy
karlos,
the 040/40 is the best cpu for any amiga cause is nearly fast as the 060/50 and not suffer the huge 060 compatibility problems
the 060 is a bit faster but lot of programs and games not works ok....I remember when I had an apollo 1260 I lived suffering every day making scripts to make run any program or game
anyways...jcache is asking for an accelerator for his A1200 and all 040 accelerators are not recommendable for the normal A1200 case because the 040 runs very hot and is not stable there....but in a tower the 040/40mhz works great! and is the best 68k cpu on the ratio speed/compatibility
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@LaserBack
The compatibility woes you experienced with your 060 were probably down to the fact that apollo's 68060 library is not brilliant and furthermore you don't get anything remotely like CyberPatcher with it (Oxypatcher is great if you can get it though).
It's true that the 68060 introduced lots of stuff that causes headaches for very old software but then the 68040 isn't perfect in that regard either. For games, at least, WHDLoad mitigates this.
Trust me, even running 68040 optimized code, there is absolutely no way a 680040 at 40MHz approaces the speed of a properly tuned 68060 at 50MHz. And later mask 68060's can go a fair bit higher clockspeeds than that, provided the rest of your accelerator can keep up.
As far as suitability for a desktop 1200 goes, a good quality 68060 card (preferably using a later and cooler running 68060 revision) would be a lot better than an 040 board.
However, I'd say the Blizzard 1230 is a good choice if the guy doesn't want the speed but does want best all-round compatibility.
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Im paying £60 for the blizzard 1230(pristine with box).There is no 68882 FPU though, and the only one I could find is from amiga-kit which is 40mhz.The blizzards FPU runs at 50mhz.Will it be OK to run the 40mhz one at 50mhz.
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I'm afraid not. Some accelerators let you do that but I think the Blizzard 1230 doesn't.
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@jcache
There is no 68882 FPU though, and the only one I could find is from amiga-kit which is 40mhz.
Is there some reason you must have FPU? It isn't needed by many things, really.
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@LaserBack
the 040/40 is the best cpu for any amiga cause is nearly fast as the 060/50
040 is nowhere near as fast as 060.
not suffer the huge 060 compatibility problems
I've never seen any compatibility problems. The 68060.library patches the system so that possible compatibility problems are worked around. And you can always disable the accelerator by hitting '2' key at boot (Blizzard cards).
lot of programs and games not works ok. I remember when I had an apollo 1260 I lived suffering every day making scripts to make run any program or game
That's Apollo problem, not 68060. Don't attribute Apollo's problems to 68060.
Blizzard 1260 is the best accelarator for desktop A1200. It runs cool and doesn't require tower conversion. If you have to pick between 040 or 060, 060 is clear winner (just make sure you're not getting some half-assed 060 card, such as Apollo).
In fact, I would go as far as recommending Blizzard 1230 030@50 over 040@40 card (which are overclocked by the manufacturer already, and require a fan).
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go for B 1230 IV ! it rocks and 60 quids is adequate price
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Yeah I've also been using a Blizzard 1230 IV for years without any problems :-)
However, I've just used SysSpeed on it as WhichAmiga makes the A1200 freeze. I'm getting the figures CPU 68030 (51 Mhz) and FPU 68882 (177Mhz)
Isn't that 177Mhz figure a bit odd? :-?
It has two chips on it:-
MC68030RC50C
MC68882RC50A
A4000 Mad
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Take the B1230-IV
It's really much more compatible for old games than 040 and 060 cards.
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And don't forget about HSMathlibs, from Matthias Henze, wich is faster than Blizzard's ones. And cheap (5 dollars!).
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I would say the Blizzard 1230 IV was the pinnacle of the A1200 accelerators... in terms of Performance/Compatibility/Stability ratio... I often used to swap between my Blizz030-IV and my BlizzPPC depending upon the application...