Should I upgrade my A1200?

[ple3003]

I'm thinking of upgrading my 1200, which i by the way haven't used for like two years from now.
I just don't know what to buy.
Just for gaming, a blizzard 030 64mb RAM + a HD would be nice.
If i should go for towerizing it with a 040/060, just how fast are they really? gimme some numbers plz! Thougt it would be cool to rock with an old A1200. Of course i would add a PCI-board as well.
The downside is that it will be a rather expensive computer relative to what you get for an A1.
As i understand it, IDE sucks performance out of the system, but what about UDMA/ATA? Is there even such a controller to the amiga. (yeah yeah... SCSI = Expensive).
The raw speed isn't really the issue here, the responsiveness, gaming and of course nostalgia. I already got a XP2600 to watch/encode DivX and such things.

[Hardboy]

First of all, upgrading an A1200 can be quite an addictive hobby, so watch up!

The most usefull upgrade would be an IDE-interface and OS3.9. This will bring you access to big HD´s and CD-rom, which is most usefull.

One drawback here is that OS3.9 needs more memory than an unupgraded a1200 has, so you will also need an accelerator card. 68030-based cards are really cheap, and could make a good upgrade, and would let you play most old games from HD.

If you wan´t to play MP3 and watch video, you´ll need a much faster processor like 68060 or PPC. These processors are fast, but cannot use there full potential without a graphics card.

If you´ll go for a PPC based card, a BlizzardVisionPPC would be a good choice, and no matter what a PCI-based solution like mediator+graphics card would give you quite a nice workbench.

Prices for all these?

I´ve got my IDE-interface from:Power Computing, and bundled it with OS3.9+3.1 Rom chips. Around 50£

I´ve got PPC accelerator + BVision gfx card used fromAmibench. Around 200£

With all these peripherals you´ll also need a better power supply. Around 20£.

That´s it, happy upgrading!

[Vincent]

Also check out Eyetech for add-ons, they do good towers, Apollo accelerators (which don't like my a1200), and a lot of other things.

Eyetech's website

[Targhan]

There is a huge difference between a stock A1200 and a
towerized PCI enhanced A1200.

The numbers are difficult to spit out, but I would suggest at least an
040/40 in the system to drive everything.  I can't explain why, but my
tower 1200 with a Mediator and Voodoo3 has a better display than my PC
with it's GeForceII (Winders/Linux/Amithlon).  

If you aren't worried about the money, an A1200 with gfx card is a
good "bridge" system to an A1, Pegasos, or Umilator.  Because, you'de
have to get used to running applications in RTG ;-)

[ple3003]

I went for the 030 with 64mb RAM. Felt kinda right. I'll wait for the peggies/A1:s for more serious applications.

[Rob]

In case your still interested in speed comparisons.  My Blizzard
1260/66 Sysinfo speed rating is 50.25 Mips and 36.03 MFlops.

Sysinfo rated it:

39.55 x faster than an A1200 68020EC 14Mhz.

10.40 x faster than an A3000 68030 25Mhz.

2.63 x faster than an A4000 68040 25Mhz.

An 030 is a pretty good choice if your not doing anything too serious
though.  I remember getting an 030 and thinking what a great
improvemnent it was and that was with 8Mb rather than your 64Mb.

[Dan]

Have you tried UAE?
Anyway try www.ggsdata.se for the only swedish amigashop left.
Graphics card is a must, i don´t have any on my 060 A1200 and it really holds me back from using my amiga.

[Damion]

The 1260 is an excellent piece of hardware. I
was really surprised at how fast games like
Quake were, even in crappy AGA. Retro Mac
emulation is also great with the 1260.

A 1230 though is the ultimate for playing
old games and software. You can also get
most things to work with the 1260, it just
may take a bit more work with some old games.

[Effy]

I used to have a towered A1200 with Blizzard 1230/4 50/50 and 96 Mb Ram, Zorro4 busboard, Cybervision64/3D gfx, X-surf ethernetcard, Powerflyer IDE controller with 2 superfast IDE ports for up to 4 devices, and ofcourse also scsi on my Blizzard. Burning cd's is easy this way, playing games too, but it's true what is said about getting addicted to working with a gfx card. AGA suddenly looks so old ...

[yoodoo]

Should you upgrade?

No.

Get an A1 or a Pegasos.  Play with a new OS and get AmigaOS in the (not too) distant future,

[itix]

Could be cheaper buy Pegasos or A1 as someone suggested and run UAE on it... 040 is relatively slow and difference to 030 is rather small. 060 is fast but expensive when even the slowest PPC can emulate 68k in speed of 68060@150MHz... Really, 68k platform is slow and outdated. Get out of it

A Blizzard 1230 IV with 16 or 32 MB of ram is GREAT!
Don't forget to ad a 68882 fpu and it ROCKS!
As for the IDE/ATA a Power Flyer Gold is the choice.
Add a Tower Case, A HUGE Hard Drive AND A FAN COOLER ON BLIZZARD and you have a dream machine! :-D