Amiga 3000 or Amiga 4000

[Crumb]

It depends on what you want to do and also on how upgraded the A3000 is. I owned one but I end up giving back the computer in less than a week because it sucked. You have to waste a lot of money to avoid problems:
-you have to buy the rom3.1
-you have to upgrade Ramsey and DMAC
-You can't put simms on the motherboard unless you use a hack
-You must upgrade to buster11 to get full zorro3 speed
-The scsi interface is slow and doesn't recognize all devices
-the case is small and won't allow you to use all accelerators (for example CSMK1) and if you can fit some accelerators you won't be able to completely populate them with ram.
-You can't put a CDRW inside the case because it doesn't have a 5 1/4 bay
-You have to make the INT2 modification to use Accelerators with proper scsi
-You have a low density disk drive
-You can't use cheap IDE drives
-Mediator4000Di won't fit inside

Conclusion: Get the A4000. You can get an internal scandoubler and an accelerator and have proper scsi. The only thing you may want to change is the Buster if it's not version 11 but buster9 works correctly with Mediator&Prometheus so it's not mandatory.

I own an A4000 and an A4000T and I prefer them over my old 3000 (and ended up being much cheaper).

If you don't need AGA why buy a classic amiga? Get a PegasosII or MicroA1.

An A3000 is a waste of money because you have to invest a lot of money to make it work properly.
Accelerator+ramsey+dmac+rom3.1+buster11+graphiccard+tower... get a Peggy or microA1... both have less bugs, are far more stable, cheaper, more expandable...

BTW, I owned A500, 500+, 1200, 3000D, 4000D, 4000T and the A4000 are far better...

[Crumb]

"Either way, it looks like an exciting product and I certainly want one. If anyone is thinking of selling a PIV card on eBay then they had better do it now before this card becomes available. "

I doubt you can watch AGA demos with a 120Hz refresh with that Voodoo3-Zorro. And you can't have a TV Card, Sound card etc... I think I'll keep my Picasso4 and my Prometheus ;-)

[Crumb]

@amiga4001

The 4000 with the mediator lacks the videoslot so an internal scandoubler is not possible.

You can fit an A1200 internal one

[Crumb]

Not all A4000 are 3.1 either.

But you have 3.0, a revision far more useful than the crappy 2.0 that came with the A3000.

No reasone to upgrade those. Havent had a single problem with my stock ones.

You are lucky... check the hundreds of problems others have in google for example.

And if you try to use an A3640 you'll end up with headaches. High speed Zorro3 cards like the CV64 will make your A3000 hang if you don't use the latest chips or use a mixture of old ones and newer ones.

True, but most these days come with some zips on-board, plus when you get an accell, the mobo ram is a waste. (Btw, I've heard that A4k simm slots are quite fragile).

I've owned 3 A4000 and none of them had problems with the simm sockets. Other friend's A4000 doesn't have a single broken connector.

You can use a stock A4000 with an A3640 and 16MB without problems. Can you do the same with an unmodified A3000? I gues you'll have to upgrade the rom at least to be able to do something useful. And then you'll need an accelerator due to the small quantity of slow ram. And If you want to use a cheap A3640 your A3000 will start to hang because you don't have latest chips.

Again, not all (or none? AFAIK) A4k's come with buster 11 on board, plus some of them have buster 9 soldered!!! (all A3k's have socketed chips). And you only need a buster 11 for DMA boards.

According to Dave Haynie's Definitive Buster document ZorroII DMA cards can have problems on A3000 without buster 11 but not on A4000 with buster9 or 11.

Havent tried a lot of devices, but it did work with everyhting I've thrown into her.

Check this if you think that there are no issues There are lots of pages commenting the A3000 scsi problems. You can read there that many accelerators have problems using the scsi interface if you don't make the INT2 modification.

[Crumb]

All crap!

I had to upgrade my A3000. I know people with an A3000 who have problems, I have read reports of many people with problems. You may not have found problems, but the A4000 is less problematic and requires less modifications in order to have a proper machine.

A4000 came with a 880kb drive as well, A300 and A4000 BOTH had the HD drive as an option, the RAMSEY and DMAC are fine,

Firstly you say that A4000 floppy disk drive was a 880KB and later you say that it was a 1.76MB one. Sorry, but I don't understand you. All the A4000 that I have touched had High Density Floppy drives (but that doesn't mean that there weren't a few with low density units)

I NEVER botherd to change mine and NEVER had an issue at all.

You probably didn't use many Zorro cards then.

I know most poeple didnt have any.

Yeah, that clearly explains why there are so many texts in internet describing the problems of A3000 with old revision chips.

It works fine and they dont have to be upgraded in a pair like they say.

Well, you have to put rom3.1, a graphic card, ram and an accelerator if you want to do anything with it. And you'll never be able to watch AGA demos for example, so I can't see the point in buying an A3000 unless it's already upgraded with latest chips, roms, accelerator and graphic card... it's a waste of money.

" I used IDE in mine with a Budha controller. In the A4000 you need a SCSI card so its just the reverse problem isnt it? SIMMS? Who cares if you plan to use an accelerator? I took all my ZIPS out and had 128MB on my CSPPC. Its faster ram anyway."

So the A3000 is only really useful if you invest a lot of money on it.

With a simple A4000 you can do much more things, and with an expanded one you can watch AGA demos.

If you don't use AGA a Pegasos is a better investment.

"Put in a Mediator and a tower like I did and your have one kick ass system for no more then what an A4000 would be, and a lot of the times less."

The funny thing is that you have to waste a lot of time buying a tower, roms, expensive hard drives, an accelerator etc... from different sources, and with a desktop A4000 you don't need a new tower, you have AGA, you have rom 3.0 so you can use most of things and you don't need to spend so much money.

You can get an A3000 on ebay US for WAY less then a A4000.

In Europe there are few A3000 and lots of A4000 so these machines cost more or less the same. The first A3000 I bought years ago was 210€. It had rom 2.0, ocs, a 030/16Mhz, 8MB of ram and was crap. I tested it for 2 days and gave it back to the original owner. A month later I bought an A4000 with 040/25, rom3.0, buster11, 16MB, HD Floppy drive, etc for only 60€ more. Guess what computer was more useful? That A3000 required expensive roms 3.1 and most of shops charged 70€ for them. And I didn't have an accelerator yet...

If you buy it already upgraded an A3000 can be a nice machine, but if it's not upgraded and you want better features you'd better get a Pegasos.