What would you buy for classic Amiga?

[biggun]

The 400MHz figure was from a multi thousands of dollars Arria devboard.  The Cyclone 5 can hit 120 MHz or so.

SAM, you talk about two different thinks.

Dave was talking about a Sysinfo Screenshot which measured the Speed as the same as a 68000@350  MHz
And this result was actually done the $90 Vampire card.

Of course the Vampire is just an entry level card.

The Phoenix card we test right now - is about twice as strong.
E.g it would score like a 700 MHz 68000.

The high end card you refer to SAM would again result in twice the score.
So getting a performance equally to an 68000 over a giga herz is really possible.



Sam, what you mean were the benchmark results where our 68K did blow the PowerPC out of the water.
These scores were actually done on a high end FPGA card.
But these are not the scores Dave is talking about.

Dave I think you were talking about Sysinfo and AIBB numbers right?
These scores were done on the low priced Vampire.

[biggun]

I
If A-Eon had invested $1 million in Natami and burning an ASIC based on the Phoenix fpga CPU core, the 68k wouldn't be the slow poke anymore. I bet an ASIC could outperform a SAM 440 while being compatible with most of the old 68k software.

You do not need an ASIC to come in SAM performance.
Aven a quite small FPGA can outrun SAM in many benchmarks.


You also not even need a million for to build an ASIC.

[biggun]

Thanks for clearing up my mistake.  I did not realize that the 400MHz result was not from the board(s) the team is working on producing as accelerators for many Amiga computer models.

Guys please don't confuse Dave here.

The results you mean were from the low cost Vampire board $90.
The results form the also cheap Cyclone board are aboput twice as good.

This changes my perception of what can be accomplished with the yet to be released accelerator boards, from being a "Game Changing" amount of performance increase, to simply a incremental performance step increase, above what is already available using old 68020, or 68030 CPU's, but not the 40MHz to 50MHz 68040 & 68060 CPU's.

A $90 Vampire has about the speed of a 50-100 MHz 68060

A low priced Cyclone5 CPU upgrade we work can reach a performance
roughly compareable to a 200-300 MHz 68060 systems.
You can not easily say this in 1 number as every benchmakr is different.

How does a FPGA soft-core running at an equivalent of a 68000 @ 120MHz compare to a real 68060 CPU running at 50MHz to 100MHz  (which seems to be the fastest I remember any of the real 68060 chips being over-clocked to)?  I would assume that the FPGA soft-core 680x0 @ 120MHz would provide less performance than a real 68060 @ 50MHz, let alone an over-clocked 060 @ 100MHz.

The $90 Vampire outruns an 68060@50MHz in most benhmarks .
The $90 Vampire beats an 68060@100 MHz in some benchmarks.


The Cyclone 5 systems is about 2-3 times stronger.

A high priced FPGA can again be a couple times stronger.

[biggun]

When will we see a stand-alone unit. ?

Our roadmap is:
*Vampire release (600/500)
*Phoenix CPU card release (500/1000/2000)
*Phoenix CPU card releases (1200/3000/4000)
* Standalone system

[biggun]

Are additional instructions from the 68020, 030, 040, & 060 being added to the 68000 Soft-Core design, so it will eventually be able to run AmigaOS3.9?

Sure.
Running Picasso 96 and all software is the plan.

Is the Cyclone5 FPGA the chip that you are planning on using for the Phoenix accelerators?

You use the future time form?
The accelerators are there already.
Here is a picture of them:
http://www.apollo-core.com/bringup/A500v5_phoenixCPU.jpg

  How much does the Cyclone5 cost per chip and how much more expensive will the Phoenix accelerators be than the $90 Vampire boards (or is the $90 just the cost of the FPGA on the Vampire board)?

The Vampire is sold for Euro 90 total.
The Phoenix card is not sold yet.
The Phoenix card will probably be sold for 250. We have to see what warrant, reseller etc will put on top of the prodcution cost.

 

when 68k Amiga computers suddenly have 2 to 4 times more power and speed than ever before.

I'm happy when I have the CPU power to good view AVIs on my Amiga.
The CPU power is hard to "measure" with  a single number
as a CPU can have hundreds of different instructions and performance can vary in some areas.
In some areas the Phoenix-68K core already outruns Gigaherz PowerPC or Gigaherz Pentium 3 systems.

I doubt that the revival of the 68K will make a big change but its at least exciting and fun to use them.