A1200 vs A4000 question

[sim085]

Hi,

I’m still far away from buying an A1200. However I really wanted to ask this question – Can a full upgraded A1200 be as powerful as a full upgraded A4000?

Regards,
Sim085

[klapdeur]

Hi
i can tell you go for the 4000 i have also a 4000 060 with grapics card etc and a 1200 060 mediator voodoo etc.
And my 4000 is much faster then the 1200.

so i recommend the A4000

klapdeur

[Karlos]

In short, no.

For example, the fastest official CPU board that the A1200 can take is a 603e @ 240MHz (overclocked versions also exist), on a 32-bit wide memory bus. The fastest A4000 board uses a 604e @ 233MHz on a 64-bit wide memory bus.

The A4000 has a 32-bit wide Zorro 3 expansion bus that is capable of supporting DMA. Almost everything you can put in an expanded A1200 will end up being PIO driven. As a consequence, PCI expansion buses tend to be more efficient in the A4000 than the A1200 (only obvious exception being the GRexx, which uses the local mini PCI of the cyberstormppc/blizzardppc in either case).

Whatever expansions there are for the A1200 that hang of various low bandwidth ports (eg clockport soundcards, USB etc) there are faster equivalents available for the A4000.

[scuzzb494]

No doubt you realise that fully expanding the A1200 means putting it a tin box to even start competing with an A4000d. In its day those that wanted the power bought the Amiga 4000 because it had far superior expansion facilities. Only after Commodore went pop did folk start to expand the 1200s out of the case. A base 4000 is very easy to upgrade. I have 1200s in tin boxes along with 4000s and I prefer the 1200s kept in the plastic simply because the unit was never originally intended to be used this way, unlike the 4000 which was. I'm a bit of a purist at heart.

Saying that, I even have 4000d's which have been put in bigger boxes.
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz383.htm

scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com

[Hell Labs]

That reminds me, wasn't there a PPC card and 3D graphics card for the 1200 that could both be used in the standard plastic keyboard case? I think it was Bvision? Why bother towerising it?

[tone007]

Heat, heat, and heat.

[kvasir]

I believe the 2 are about matched, out of the box the 4k is much better, though. (040 vs 020 CPU) Upgrading the 1200 to match would require more hardware outright, just to get the CPU up to par. Also, the 1200 obviously lacks zorro slots and chassis space, making upgrading GFX and whatnot rather cumbersome. Though the 1200 seems more popular, and many upgrades are available for it. Otherwise, the 4K could be upped very easily to 24bit GFX if you can find an Amiga zorro-based GFX card, though ethernet and sound might be harder to come by. (The 1200 has a PCMCIA slot, capable of using ethernet or wi-fi cards, though nothing more than 10mbps afaik) To get my 1200 to where I wanted it, I had to put her in a tower case w/ a mediator PCI busboard, enabling PCI gfx, network, and sound cards. Also, I have a 68060 blizzard card, with the SCSI daughter board, fully populated with 192MB RAM (more than I've ever needed with this thing), as well as a Subway USB card, HD floppy (which the A4K already has), Amiga to PS/2 keyboard and mouse adapters (The 4K already has a nice keyboard, though a mouse adapter would be needed for a modern mouse, if you want optical/wireless or just plain cheap mice, though a boing mouse would be usable for wired optical if you can find one of the shiny dotted mouse-mats)

Basically, which one you go for would probably depend on how much cash you have, and what you want to do with it. I personally would recommend the 1200, as the PCMCIA makes networking easy, and the upgrades can be done a bit here and there, depending on how quickly your paychecks show up. The 4k would be nice if you have access to zorro stuff, though upgrading from a 040 might be troublesome. (The 040 isn't that bad a CPU, though, and with a GFX card, C2P routines are a thing of the past, which will speed up FPS games more than a 060 would anyway, I would think) Hope this helps.

Hi,

I'm still far away from buying an A1200. However I really wanted to ask this question - Can a full upgraded A1200 be as powerful as a full upgraded A4000?

Regards,
Sim085

[SamuraiCrow]

I’m still far away from buying an A1200. However I really wanted to ask this question – Can a full upgraded A1200 be as powerful as a full upgraded A4000?

I don't know if you can use a Video Toaster 4000 card in an expanded A1200 but apart from that it just depends on how far you want to take things.  For a while it was easier to find a cheap PCMCIA network card for the A1200 than a network adapter for an A4000 but that was a long time ago.

[jj]

I don't know if you can use a Video Toaster 4000 card in an expanded A1200 but apart from that it just depends on how far you want to take things. For a while it was easier to find a cheap PCMCIA network card for the A1200 than a network adapter for an A4000 but that was a long time ago.

 
Yes you can use a video toaster on a zorro busboard on the a1200, as long as you had the video slot enabler

[bloodline]

That reminds me, wasn't there a PPC card and 3D graphics card for the 1200 that could both be used in the standard plastic keyboard case? I think it was Bvision? Why bother towerising it?

I have a PPC an Bvision in the desktop case of my A1200... There's a hard drive in there too...

[beller]

I don't think I can add much to the excellent comments already offered.  I picked up a 1200 shortly after my A4000 headed off for a refurb in France a few years ago. I used the A1200 after I received the repaired A4000 since the 1200 had more memory.  

I prefer the A4000 but then I've always preferred big box Amigas.  During the Amiga's heydey my prime machine was a hacked-up A2000.  That said, the number of options to upgrade your A1200 seem to be more numerous and less expensive.

You could always do what I've done, do both.  Just don't try to do all the upgrades at once!  Look around and buy wisely...

Best of all, have fun!

Bob

[CLS2086]

Get an A1200, cheap and powerfull expansion, and much more compatible than the A4000 for games.

[Karlos]

I have a PPC an Bvision in the desktop case of my A1200... There's a hard drive in there too...

They physically fit but the A1200 case was in no way intended to be able to dissipate that much heat.