Who made the best accelerators for the Amiga 500, 2000, 3000, 4000 ,1200

[Antiriad]

This is just a general question. Some people say GVP makes the best accelerators for the A500, A2000. Also I have heard claims that the Apollo series where also good accelerators with some compatibility issues. I have heard nothing about the Blizzard series as far as the 500, 2000 miggies go. The Blizzard series looks also promissing but it seems that they didn't have the chance to produce many PPC boards after CBM went under. Unfortuently is seems that GVP pulled back on the 1200s and 4000 series. I have spent hours and hours trying to catch up with the Amiga scene since I have lost more than 10 years.

Any thoughts?

BTW

I think I got the Amiga virus back  :-D

Cheers

[DGB]

     Now that's a good question...   Of course it is like asking who makes the best cars and trucks.  Obviously everyone has their favorites.  I have had several GVPs.  The GVP 040 combo is probably the most advanced one I have.  About two years ago I acquired a Blizzard 2060 combo.  As far as I am concerned it is far superior to the GVP.  One thing I really liked about is that you could use PC memory in it.  The GVP required special memory modules from GVP which were always notoriously overpriced.  GVP had a lot of issues regarding their ROM for the SCSI controller.  It took an after market ROM from Germany to fix that problem.  IF you are going with a GVP combo try to get a GURU ROM for it to replace the GVP ROM.  I am running the Blizzard in a 2000 with a lot of other stuff.  Everything seems to get along together much better than it did with the GVP 040 combo which is now in my number two A-2000 with the GURU ROM and associatede software.  Unfortunately I know nothing about the other brands you mentioned.  It could be that one or more of them is superior to the Blizzard.  Of course I probably will never know about that as I do not plan to acquire any of them.

[Ilwrath]

Obviously everyone has their favorites.

For sure...  Back in the day, it was as heated as any Ford/Chevy/Mopar discussions.  ;-)

I thought GVP made great products.  Especially when compared to their competition at the time of release.  The one drawback was they often used the expensive "GVP SIMMS" instead of standard ones.  

GVP had a lot of issues regarding their ROM for the SCSI controller. It took an after market ROM from Germany to fix that problem.

True, but you have to compare that old Z2 controller to others out at the time...  Many of them have issues that aren't even fixable by an aftermarket ROM.  

And the reason GVP didn't get into too many accelerators for the 1200/4000 was that they went out of business not too long after the release of those two.  I had a GVP GForce 1230 (JAWS rev 1) and it was simply a brilliant 030 card for the A1200.  Blew the competition at the time right out of the water.

Throughout my history on Amiga, this would be my generic ranking.... (Based on my own past experiences, and those of my friends back in the day.)  To me, the first few are pretty clear.  The rest kind of jumble into groups.

------- Very good -------
1) Phase 5 (Blizzard/CyberStorm)
2) MacroSystems (Warp Engine)
3) GVP
------- Ok/Good -------
* DKB (Wildfire, Ferret, and others)
* Expansion Systems (Don't think they did accelerators, but SCSI, RAM cards, etc)
* PPS (Zeus, etc)
* Microbotics (VXL)
------- Avoid -------
* ACT (Apollo)
* ICD (AdSpeed)
* CSA (Magnum/12-Gauge)

Also, be wary of later versions of original companies (DCE, GVP-M, etc).  Some are high quality, some are very cost and quality reduced models.

[terminator]

Antiriad wrote:
This is just a general question. Some people say GVP makes the best accelerators for the A500, A2000. Also I have heard claims that the Apollo series where also good accelerators with some compatibility issues. I have heard nothing about the Blizzard series as far as the 500, 2000 miggies go. The Blizzard series looks also promissing but it seems that they didn't have the chance to produce many PPC boards after CBM went under. Unfortuently is seems that GVP pulled back on the 1200s and 4000 series. I have spent hours and hours trying to catch up with the Amiga scene since I have lost more than 10 years.

GVP DID make damn good stuff at one time.  Nice documentation, easy to install, little or no hassles.

But their fortunes predated CBM's plunge into chaos.  Seems in the months before CBM died, GVP went downhill, big time.  We used to call Amiga World "GVP World," because of all the full page ads they bought in the magazine.  GVP scaling back their ad buys back in 1993 probably hastened the demise of AW.

But GVP-M isn't the old GVP.

I bought a GVP-M 060 board for my A2000.  Paid cash up front to the dealer.  The dealer ordered it, was given a DHL tracking number too.  The waybill number was bogus. About six months later, the board suddenly arrives at the dealer.

I just couldn't get that board to work.  Finally GVP-M answers a dealer inquiry with 'you need this type of RAM'.  That didn't solve the problem.  They got another board from GVP-M, and it still didn't work. The instructions for an expensive card like that were just a photocopy stapled together.

I even dragged the machine into the dealer, and we had no luck.  Shoved a P5 060 card into it, and it booted just fine.  Not a problem.  The GVP060 if it did boot, locked up soon after.  Still using the P5 060 today, about 6 years later.

Before buying the GVP card, I bought a Cybervision 64-3D.  It wouldn't work with the Fusion Forty card I had.  System didn't see it.  Emailing the techs at National Amiga got an answer: 'The Fusion Forty does weird things with the timing, etc.  Best option is dump the FF and get another accelerator.

The Fusion Forty was a quick and dirty 040 card.  It did the job, but many other cards didn't work with it.  My friend had a Trivecta? card, and it didn't work with the FF40.

The Fusion Forty was OK, but no good with many expansion cards.

The GVP-M product had jumpers to set, and was very fussy about things.  Some people had no trouble with them.

The P5 board needed no jumper changes.  IIRC, it was basically a plug and play card.

The P5 A3000/A4000 060/PPC cards are another story.  They were known to fail, even out of the box.

The old GVP cards were good, with excellent instruction books, and didn't cause any problems.  The strange SIMMS they used were probably a result of them chosing what looked like a new technology, only to see the 72pin SIMM eclipse it in short order.  (Much like the ZIP RAM used in the A3000).

[Ilwrath]

The P5 A3000/A4000 060/PPC cards are another story. They were known to fail, even out of the box.

Not the Phase 5 ones, as much as the DCE ones.  Though you're right, ALL of the CyberStormPPC cards were very fragile designs.  They often didn't (and still don't!) make it through shipping/installation.

Like I said... Be wary of ANY of the companies that followed up the original manufacturers.  GVP-M and DCE both lacked the quality of their predecesors (GVP and Phase 5), no doubt.  

The strange SIMMS they used were probably a result of them chosing what looked like a new technology, only to see the 72pin SIMM eclipse it in short order. (Much like the ZIP RAM used in the A3000).

Naw... it was a money-making lock-in scheme from the start.  The GVP SIMMS were released after standard SIMMS, and used exactly the same technology in a slightly different package (think of proprietary printer ink cartridges).  The ZIP RAM was simply a technology that everyone hyped up, and then it didn't catch on (think of RAMBUS).  Quite a difference.  

Doesn't really matter, though, other than if you want a GVP accelerator, make sure you get one that has enough RAM packaged with it!  :-)

[Jope]

The ZIP <-> RAMBUS analogy isn't really spot on..

ZIP RAM is just normal DRAM that is in a ZIP package as opposed to the DIP package.

RAMBUS however is a different type of memory altogether that is talked to in a specific way.

ZIPs were a good idea back when memory was expanded with individual chips, as the ZIP sockets take a lot less PCB real estate than DIP sockets.

Thankfully we don't have to go and buy a bagful of individual chips to upgrade our machines nowadays.

[Brian]

If we're talking quality I say Phase5 and GVP, GVP using it's own memory was both pro and con at it's time and only con now (being faster than normal memory but almost impossible to scoop up now). If you say best as in most blast in the machine period then it's a different question.

A500: Only one 040 card available and that's from PPS so nothing to rival it's CPU... but... the Viper530 with IDE and SCSI controller and 16 times the memory capasity it's a close call between the two. Someone will say GVP530 but, although it's an excelent product, it doesn't have the speed nor the memory capasity of the Viper and only boosts with a 286PC emulator card that's hardly useable today.

A2000: Here's several different 060 cards with more or less the same things on it. But it all boils down to either Phase5's Blizzard2060 or DKB's WildFire and with the WildFire having Ethernet builtIn and a local PCI buss I'm leaning towards that though still can't decide 100%.

A1200: No question about it in my oppinion... Phase5's BlizzardPPC/060... Someone will say Apollo if PPC isn't of a concern but sadly they have too bad a reliability history with the A1200 and their fastest 060/75, though impressivly fast, lacks FPU thus creating problems with most Amiga program taking advantage of 060 and expecting FPU to just be there.

A3000&4000: No question about it here... nothing comes close to the CyberstormPPC/060.

[Lemmink]

Let me add my two cents: If you are looking for an accelerator look for a P5 product in the first place.For the A1200 and A3000/A4000 there is absolutely no way around it. For the A2000 I`d prefer a Blizzard2040/2060 too but if you manage to get one of those mythical DKB Wildfires go for it, as it tops ALL 68k accelarator.
For an A500 you unfortunately can`t go for an P5 card as the only thing they made for his machine is a plain 68000 Board with some extra RAM, so you have to chose between the E-Matrix530/Viper530 and the GVP530, though the first one is clears supperior you have to fit it into the 68000 socket and have to clip one wire under an other socket, what is not to everyones taste.

One word about Apollos: run from it as far as you can !! Basically they do what they should and RAM access (specially CHIP-RAM access) is faster then on the Blizzard boards but you get fragmenzted RAM by default. When you have 128 MB on an Apollo 40x0 it will appear not as one 128 MB chunk, but as 4 32 MB chunks, that is quite bad when it comes to emulators like shapeshifter. Of course the SCSI on all Apollocards is a joke, the only chance of getting it to work is haveing exactly the drives mentioned in the manual und throwing a lizzards tail over you shoulder every time you boot the machine. Worst of the bunch is the Apollo 2030 50MHz, while the others basically work you have to pull some tricks to even make the machine boot if you have the "wrong" revision of the A2000 board.

GVP cards are basically OK, but theyr drawback is the expensive RAM (though some Models from GVP-m like the Tecmagic have socket for GVP and PS2 RAM) and the slight funny behavior of the onboard SCSI.

As I saind in the beginning: Looking for an accelerator ? Loook for P5 !

[chiark]

This takes me back - fantastic thread :-) .  I used to work part time at shops that sold Amiga and accessories, and I have to agree that the older GVP stuff was excellent but they, ah, "lost their way" in the end times particularly when it came to reliability.  The amount of DOA stuff that we had, particularly in the 1200 accelerators, was frankly embarassing.  We ended testing every 1200 accelerator before shipping or selling it :-( .  Funnily enough, we soon dropped the product line...

I've personally had a CSR Mega Midget Racer on my 2000, and that wasn't a bad solution if you could find the RAM for it.  This seems like a common cry now, but back in the day ;-) computers were not commodity devices, and standard interfaces for stuff such as ram had yet to be decided.

The very worst piece of design for end user fitment goes to ZIP packaging, IMHO.  Loathesome stuff to fit, and even worse to remove!

The WarpEngine 040 seems to be a fairly stable lump of kit, having survived frequent physical abuse so I have to stand by that, but for performance nothing touched the 4000 CyberStorm systems - even if they were tempremental/fragile.

I fondly remember receiving a CyberStorm 060 and a CyberVision card back in 1994 (or was it 95?) and comparing it to my 3000, and a 4000/040.  It blew the 040 away so embarassingly...  

But that accelerator was £1000.  No matter how you cut it, that's a lot of money!

[spavatch]

------- Avoid -------
* ACT (Apollo)
* ICD (AdSpeed)
* CSA (Magnum/12-Gauge)

Actually there isn't much choice when you want to boost an A600, the Apollo 630 seems the best if not the only one available. 030 running at 50 MHz, FPU, SIMM slot for 32 megs of RAM, PCMCIA-friendly etc... :roll:

However, I must admit that Phase5 and GVP made the best booster-cards :-). Oh, and don't forget the Elbox 1200-series, they are quite good too ;-).

[Ilwrath]

Actually there isn't much choice when you want to boost an A600

Hmm... True.  :-)  Though had this been about Commodore hardware, I would have had the A600, itself, under the "Avoid" catagory.  ;-)  I mean, trying to snap an accelerator over the top of a surface mounted chip is not really an optimal solution in my mind.  :lol:

If I have to have a computer in a keyboard, gimmie a 500 or 1200 any day.  :-)

[FastRobPlus]

I was a big fan of the CSA Derringer, since the was a solution that fit the 68000 socket on the 500, 2000, and even 1000. They did have to recall the early one I had to do something to it (can't remember what.)

I noticed nobody mentioned CBM.  Thier stuff was okay-ish.  Very baseline and plain, but at least the EE's silkscreened funny stuff on the PCBs.

Early on, I liked Ronin Research.  Thier Hurricaine was the first '020 I ever used.  Their tech support was exceptional. I remember I always wanted a PAL Jr, but it was way out of my price range.

[spavatch]

Ilwrath wrote:
Hmm... True.  :-)  Though had this been about Commodore hardware, I would have had the A600, itself, under the "Avoid" catagory.  ;-)

You got a point there ;-). But still, I think there is something cute in A600, maybe it's compact size - small is beautiful? :lol:

[CRL]

Hi all-
The mention of pricey 060 cards reminded me that just last year I bought a hopped up 040 called a quaddoubler from a Macintosh support company.  Plugged right into my A4000 in place of the original 040 and ran at 50mghz. ABIB(?) benchmarks me at just below an 060 system in most things, a little faster in showing the soccer ball and ellipes, and of course down with the 040 A4000 when testing things that make heavy memory calls.  The card with cooling fan and overclocked 040 cost a little over $100.  Not too bad bang for the buck in the Amiga world.
Yours
CRL :-)

[melott]

Well .. in my A3000 I have a WarpEngine 040 @40mhz.
I haven't had one bit of trouble with it and it has
a very fast SCSI and 64 megs 72 pin simms.
(IMHO .. a very good reliable card)

In my A2000 I have a GVP TekMagic 060 @ 50mhz.
The only problem I've had with it is with OS 3.9
and the 'WarmBoot problem' that so many people have
with OS 3.9. So I can't really fault the GVP card for
that. It has a good SCSI and 128 megs 72 pin simms.
(also IMHO .. a very good reliable card)

With all the talk about the CSPPC cards and the
Blizzard, there always seems to be a thread on A.org
asking where to get them repaired.
I personally don't think I want one.