A4000 or souped up 1200 ??

[x56h34]

Expensive ---> expanding an A1200
Very Expensive ---> expanding an A4000

:-)

Theoretical top A4000 configuration is always considerably faster than a theoretical top A1200 one, but from personal experience I have to admit that playing around, building, and configuring an A1200T system is more fun simply due to the whole hacky factor. :-)

[x56h34]

BenShep wrote:
Just so I know - what are the theoretical top a1200 and a4000 configurations?

If you compare the best accelerator card (by the factory specs), the contest is already over.

Blizzard PPC 603e+ for A1200 vs Cyberstorm PPC for A4000.

BPPC can be as good as a 68060@50Mhz on the 68k side and 240Mhz on the PPC side (603e CPU). It can have a Fast SCSI-2 controller on it which can work at 10MB/s speed (theoretical limit). Its scsi chain can detect 8 devices in total (including the controller).

CSPPC can be as good as a 68060@50Mhz on the 68k side and 233Mhz on the PPC side (604e CPU, about 60% faster than 603e per clock, IIRC). It always comes with a UW-SCSI-3 controller which can work at 40MB/s speed (theoretical limit). Its scsi chain can detect 16 devices in total (including the controller).

I think that this would be the main reason of why A3000 and A4000 are faster and a little better overall than A1200, however there are also other reasons to list, such as the ability to have Zorro III slots with DMA and not being limited to 8MB Zorro II memory window with Mediator PCI cards, which is a major pain in the arse with A1200 Mediators.

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Argus wrote:

doctorq wrote:
If it were me, I'd go the A4000 route, but there are many pros and cons mentioned in this thread about each computer.

IIRC the ram on the BPPC is 16 bit, while 32 bit on the CSPPC (or am I confused, it's early in the morning)

I believe the CSPPC's memory is set up for 64-bit addressing for the 604 chip while the BPPC is only 32-bit as the 603 chip can only address 32-bit memory.  So the Blizz gives you more memory but the CSPPC is the faster implementation.

That's right guys. I forgot to mention this advantage of the CSPPC as well.