Since you plan to buy one regardless, you can do a Linux comparison against other systems when yours arrives. But it's really meaningless to compare it to anything other than OS4 on AmigaOne and the old PPC add-on cards running OS4. Clearly it's a slower processor than the A1, but apparently the SAM has some advantages in memory bandwidth. Overall I'd guess that the SAM is probably faster since it doesn't have a history of burning up like the A1 is prone to do, resulting in weeks/months of lost time while waiting for reapairs.
