A1200 turbo cards

[visike]

Hello,

I am considering to buy a turbo card for my A1200 but I have no experience at all. It seems to me that all the cards (except PPC what, I am not considering) speeds are between about 20-50MHz. Can someone describe me besides of the MHz speed how much they are differ processor wise? I mean what is the diffences between 68030 ,68040 and 68060 in speed if they are clocked to the same MHz!? Software compatibility wise?
Is there any benchmark available on the web for the different cards?
I've already heard that the Blizzard cards are very reliable. What else could you recommend?

Finaly it would be nice if someone can give me a price gestimate for the different cards. (How much they are worth..)

Thanks in advance.

PS: If someone want to sell a card feel free to send me a mail with details

[Robert17]

Well, I'm no expert but the 68030 is at the more compatible end of the spectrum, but slower also. so clockspeeds arent really much to go by... I.e a 50mhz '060 is many many times quicker than a 50mhz '030.

I think most apps have patches and games have whdload so can work on an '060 anyway, the '060 is the best choice if you have the money, but the '030 is also a good starter.

Robert

[rayt]

I know I'm repeating myself because I said the same in 2 other threads today (seems like today is the A1200 turbo boards day or something), but the best boards and the only ones I would recommend without a doubt are blizzard boards by phase5..
So if you don't want to spend too much money, you should get a blizzard 1230-IV (older versions are also good, I use a 1230-II and never had any problems).. and if you want a really fast system you should get a blizzard1260.. I had both a 1230-IV and a 1260 and NEVER had any problems with it..
also, if you buy a blizzard 1230-IV with scsi kit and you decide to upgrade to a 1260 one day, you can keep the scsi kit because its the same for both cards.. its up to you how much performance you need and how much money you are willing to spend.. for a comparison of 68k cpu speeds go to amigaspeed.. you will notice that a 060 can be more than 5x the speed of a 030 at the same clockspeed..

[Lando]

If you look at this page, you can see a graph showing the relative approximate speeds of the various 68k processors available for the Amiga.  A 50Mhz '060 is about 5 times faster than the 030 at the same clock speed.

Although it has a 100Mhz '060 listed, I don't think these are readily avaialable.  The fastest '060 I've heard of in an Amiga is 80Mhz.

As for prices, look at www.vesalia.de.  Or, second-hand, I guess you could pay about £30 for a '030 card, £60 for an '040, or £100 for an '060.

[DonnyEMU]

Has anyone heard the status of the Amiga coldfire accelerator project? Is it alive or has it died.. I'd like to see benchmarks with this kinda thing up against an 060 as well

[visike]

Thanks!

It is very useful information for me.
Another questions:
-Could be fit any of them into an A1200 desktop? I mean is it safe to use and not warm up too much?
-How much noise do they make (if any of them contains a fan)?

[Lemmink]

In general ALL A1200 Turboboards fit into the Desktopcase. Only exeption would be the Blizzard 1240 and maybe some DCE made Blizzard1260 due to an upright SIMM-socket.

Usually only 040er and overclocked 060er cards need a fan. For a 25MHz 040 you might get away with just a passive heatsink. That`t the approach the Apollo1240 takes with the processor faceing inwards so you can still close the trapdoor (though it is not recommendet, as the 040 even at 25MHz generates a lot of heat)

[visike]

Additional question:
I still use the original power supply. I know it is recommended to use a bigger one. Is it realy recommended with every card or I can still use it with 1230 or older card?

[Lemmink]

With just a 030 you will have a good chance. I ran an A1200 with Blizzard 1230, 3.5" HD and CD-ROM (power taken from the ext. floppyport) for several years.
You might even get away with a Blizzard1260 without SCSI-kit running of the orgiginal PSU but any 040 based card runns a good chance to overwhelm the little bugger.

[rayt]

Additional question:  I still use the original power supply. I know it is recommended to use a bigger one. Is it realy recommended with every card or I can still use it with 1230 or older card?

You can use it without a problem with a 1230 and even a 1260 card.. only ppc cards have power problems I think.. but it also depends what other hardware (2,5 hd etc) you have in your A1200.. you could also try an A500 power supply as it is a bit stronger..

[Brian]

With the sucky 23-25W PSU that comes with the A1200 you risk killing it just attaching extra diskdrives so for love of god at least get hold of an A500 PSU that gives twise the power. No matter what ppl tell you the PSU will not stand it for longer times... I actually killed an A500 PSU after about a years usage by hooking it up to my A1200 w. B1230, 3.5" HD and 2 External floppys so. (also my A1200 w. B1260, 3.5" HD, 1 External floppy, Scandoubler, PCMCIA Ethernet and Glowwhire didn't even light up with an A500 PSU).

Generaly speaking 030 cards go between 7-11Mips, 040 cards between 18-35Mips and 060 cards at 80+Mips. 030 cards are by far the best compatibility with 060 coming second and 040 last.

030 turbocards can easily be placed under the lid of the trapdoor and should be safe, though cutting air holes and perhaps even adding a heatsink doo prolong the CPU's life. 040 Gets very hot and isn't recomended for the A1200 though with heatsink, fans, no trapdoor cover and feets to lift up the machine it can work (I know... my BPPC040 looked like that in it's pre A1200T era). 060 cards though they usually don't come with any cooling are very happy to at least get a heatsink (and fan if you intend to overclock it) and above mentioned cutout of the trapdoor should do just fine.