CPU upgrades?

[tabbybasco]

I've been looking at the accelerator boards available for the A3000 and A4000. I've pretty much ruled out a 603e based board as I just as well spend that kind of money on an Acube A500, but what is the difference between an 040@50MHz and an 060@50MHz performance wise? OS3.5 and 3.9 were never optimized to run on the 060. Would it be advantageous to create a hack to allow  3.9 to at least use some of the improvements of the 060 over the 040? I was looking over the data sheets for the 060 last night. It seems to me that in order for the 060 to be compatible with 3.5 and 3.9 it has to act like it's an 040 negating most of the advantages of the 060.

[tabbybasco]

I don't think they make a 603e for 3000 or 4000 anyway. I think the 603e is for A1200. I think Z-III amigas take 604e which is a full 64 bit CPU.

The if software is written to take advantage of chip correctly, it the 060 can perform up to twice as fast as the 040. I think this is on computational heavy heavy routines only(as it has an extra integer unit), and is not likely double the perceived performance of the OS if it were to be optimized for 060. I just don't think it would help the type of tasks the OS is responsible for.  A lot of the OS functions are already patched by various CPU specific utilities(CopyMem), CPU Library, an of course you should have the correct datatypes installed for your CPU.

The biggest advantage of the 060 at 50mhz vs the 040 at 50 is that the 060 does not even require any sort of cooling at that speed where as the 040 will probably be unstable anywhere near 50 mhz.

I don't really think 3.5 and 3.9 were ever optimized or even recompiled for any CPU, let alone the PPC. Those versions are just 3.1 with shovelware(some of it PPC). Maybe I'm wrong.

3.5 and 3.9 have PPC support, 3.9 has WarpOS 5.0 support, according to be back of the case, but doesn't directly use the PPC cpu code. I've looked on SoftHut's website and a Cyberstorm PPC-233MHz w/060@50MHz is listed @ US$900 (what's a nickle among friends?). The Cyberstorm Mark III with 060@50MHz lists for US$635, GVP-M 4060DT 060@50MHz is US$445, an Acube AmigaOne 500 lists at about EU1063 on Vesalia's website. So there comes a point when it's best to say the H--l with it and buy a new AmigaOne. In the Navy the rule of thumb was if it cost more than 1/2 of the replacement cost to repair or upgrade, then it's FUBAR (F'd Up Beyond All Repair).

[tabbybasco]

Ok, the consensus is the 060@50MHz is the best option. Now which one is the best. I've seen GVP-M has updated some of their designs. The A4000-60 looks good, but I can't find any information on it. Is it a remake of their 4060DT? or a new design? I had noticed not much action on SoftHut's website, so what are the best hardware dealers out there and are their any others in the U.S. or will I need to deal with U.S. Customs?

[tabbybasco]

SoftHut is listing new GVP-M 4060DT I guess I will have to contact them to see if they have them in stock. GVP-M has it listed as the 4000-060 on their webpage and the link to order on line sends you over to SoftHut.

But I guess I need to get everything up and running again. Versalia Online indicates they have the 2.5" internal diskette drive Maybe by next month I will be online with it; I've never been able to use the X-Surf II yet.