X1000 CPU is PWRficient PA6T

[Amiga_Nut]

The question I have, where do you go from here since there is no follow up chip to the PA6T, so you've got to choose altogether a new chip (even if its ppc based).  There is not another ppc chip even in the pipeline for the power/watt combo that PA6T has, so immediately you have painted yourself into a corner regarding a follow up.

IBM are still actively developing PPC architecture, ALL three games consoles out there use a PPC in some form. We have Xenon, CELL and Broadway. OK Broadway is rubbish and pre G4 speeds but that still leaves two completed CPUs that are PPC compatible. I doubt very much Microsoft would change from PPC back to Intel either, so expect to see a revised Xenon II within a few years (not the rubbish 16 colour s-l-o-w game from the bitmap bros!!)

As others have said it is really an issue of 'will they go bankrupt?' not 'I can build an i7 PS3 beating gaming rig for £500 less!' though. And it is the fastest OS4 box you can buy so if that's all you want and money is no object then have a nice time

Working AmigaONEs for sale are pretty rare and for some people SAM isn't fast enough. I totally agree, a 933mhz AmigaONE is probably my limit to how 'simple' I would go if I was to build a machine.

[Amiga_Nut]

IBM/LSI, AMCC and Freescale have all announced new chips recently, it isn't dead by any means.  PPC isn't targeting the desktop anymore but they are getting faster.  There is an upgrade path but with Amiga volumes don't expect them to be cheap.

They wont be competitive with most modern PCs but I don't think they'll be quite so bad as some are suggesting.  The expect X1000 is going to be a lot better than a 2003 vintage PC.  I don't know how the core will compare but it has a dual channel on-die memory system - similar to that found in today's mainstream PCs.

Unfortunately SPEC has not had a good reputation for a long time and it's got a lot worse recently.  The only way to find out real performance is to try it and see.

I doubt very much that a machine based on the tri core sextet thread capable IBM Xenon CPU as in the £125 xbox 360 @ 3.2ghz would cost more than £400/$500 etc. It is also significantly faster than the existing G5 based x1000 by a huge margin...ie current quad core PC speeds in reality.

And Sony/Toshiba/IBM are not going to let CELL die, again with over 45 million CPUs produced for various applications price is not a sensitive issue as with old G5 PPC architecture stuff.

Anyway I did a bit of research on the XMOS co-pro, it can execute 8 threads on each of the 4 cores yes but only two threads in reality (ie two every 1/4 of the total CPU speed so 100mhz processing per pair for a 400mhz XMOS running 8 threads on a core).

The problem is the OS has no support for such esoteric hardware. Maybe the XMOS would make a good geometry setup engine like a baby version of the CELL SPUs on PS3 for your GPU but who knows. And a quick and dirty kludge like WarpOS or PowerUP is not going to work well.

The real issue is the people making the OS and the hardware need to be the same damned company in step with each other 100% of the design phase, look how many revisions it took MS from Windows v 1.0 to achieve effective and useful multitasking. Using Dr Tim King's TriPos for Amiga in 1985 was nowhere near as complicated as integrating a dual core cpu and quad core co-pro with the ability to run 32 threads integrated into a single thread single core OS like OS4 to be sure my friends. I don't envy the programmers tasked with that and given the tiny sales of x1000 it's not going to be Hyperion I bet.

[Amiga_Nut]

Lets get some points out the way.....

* Xena is likely a method to "lock in" to the hardware, custom chip custom encryption, custom security, and hard to copy.

* 99% of all X1000's will remain in their original packaging and retained by collectors, its obsolescence is irrelevant, it's a collectors piece, for vintage uber geeks, thats the target market and they may not even been fans of the Amiga......

* Its compatibility, performance, price and usability are all irrelevant as its not going to exit the packaging. It will be resold at increasingly escalated prices and a short production run is an absolute certainty.

X1000 = Fiat 500 Abarth (Gutless piece of sh*t but colour coded and stylish), If Clarkson reviewed it for the cool wall it would a jewel around Kristin Scott Thomas's neck, polished and kept in a safe and brought out on occasion to polish its packaging.

I can't see how anyone can disagree with this.......isn't it obvious ?  

I don't disagree with any of that except that the Abarth Fiat 500 is the best in its class....if you want a euro shoebox of a car or have a tiny garage

Anyway the issue is A-EON are marketing it as the second coming, and that's why you get such a huge disparity in the reception received by Amiga users who lived in the Reagan years of A1000 and know for a fact how it absolutely slam dunked EVERY desktop computer available in 1985 in every department at any price. Interesting yes, expensive yes, FA to do with Amiga 1000 or any kind of spiritual successor to A1000 vs Mac vs ST vs 286 EGA PC. Sure the ST was cheaper but it was like comparing an M3 and a rolling chassis of an M3 with no engine or drivetrain lol it was the bare minimum for a computer even in 1985 with zero custom hardware and an off the shelf non multitasking GUI.