Best Amiga Today???

[HotRod]

Yes Altivec will make programs that supports it faster but the G3GX is faster for general usage according to Hyperion.

Also the faster G4s are said to be faster than those in A1 XEs because of the larger cache.

If someone who have tried both experienced one as faster than the other I belive that it is so. Do you need benchmarks for everything?

If you're driving can't you see the difference between 30 km/h and 100 km/h without watching the needle?

[X-ray]

I would say that in terms of all-original purpose-made classic Amiga hardware, my machine is not too bad:

A4000T
PPC 604e @ 233 / 060
PIV (with Concierto and Paloma)
DKB3128
Lola Genlock

Maybe just a XSurf II needed?

[DrBombcrater]

In th end, I think G4 is faster than G3 at same frequency. It would be nice to make some benchmark between these two.

There were Quake scores posted in a thread on AW. I can't reference the exact numbers because AW is down right now, but the uA1's 750GX/800 returned a better score than an XE with a 1.1GHz G4 (I think it was a 7447, but not sure).

[Louis Dias]

DrBombcrater wrote:

In th end, I think G4 is faster than G3 at same frequency. It would be nice to make some benchmark between these two.

There were Quake scores posted in a thread on AW. I can't reference the exact numbers because AW is down right now, but the uA1's 750GX/800 returned a better score than an XE with a 1.1GHz G4 (I think it was a 7447, but not sure).

the GX (Gekko) has added SIMD instructions (also found in the Nintendo Gamecube).  So the G4's vector processing advantage is lessened, the GX is also a newer design so it's internally more efficient than the G4 for most things.

here's the Gamecube version's specs:

Clock frequency : 485 MHz (actually 487.5)
CPU capacity : 1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal data precision : 32-bit Integer & 64-bit floating-point
External bus : 1.3GB/second peak bandwidth (32-bit address space, 64-bit data bus 162.5 MHz clock)
Internal cache L1: instruction 32KB, data 32KB (8 way) L2: 256KB (2 way)

notice the L2 cache!  This lets the graphics chip (ATI Flipper) which is also the MMU, do it's thing with less interuption from the CPU...

see also: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-503797.html?legacy=zdnn

[Sloxa]

G4 is faster than g3...  and whit altivec.. it's much
faster....
and best amiga will be,
Amiga whit Amiga OS!!!!!!!
whit  fastest available Amiga MotherBoard!!!!
There is Best AMIGA!!!!
ANY EMULATED CAN'T  BEAT REAL AMIGA!!!!
This is my opiniom!

[Piru]

@lou_dias

the GX (Gekko) has added SIMD instructions

750GX is not Gekko. 750GX doesn't have AltiVec (or SIMD).

Gekko is based on 750CXe. It has two scaled down vector units, which are incompatible with real AltiVec (7447 has 4 full AltiVec units for example).

[DrBombcrater]

the GX (Gekko) has added SIMD instructions (also found in the Nintendo Gamecube). So the G4's vector processing advantage is lessened, the GX is also a newer design so it's internally more efficient than the G4 for most things.

The 750GX has almost nothing in common with the Gamecube's Gecko, which seems to be just a simplified 750CXe with a basic SIMD unit smashed on. The 750GX, like all the current 750 series, has no SIMD capability at all.

My pet theory is the the GX's large L2, coupled with improvements in the way the cache is managed and interfaced to the core, has reduced the number of times the pipeline is stalled by main memory hits to some critical point where the core can get much closer to its theoretical maximum throughput that earlier 750 designs can.

And that theoretical maximum is significantly higher for the 750's 4-stage core, at least on integer code, than for the G4's 7-stage core. The G4 is supposed to counter that by scaling to higher clocks than the 750 (which it does, of course, 1.6GHz against 1.0GHz currently) but the G4s on the A1 and Peg2 are simply not clocked high enough to overcome the 750GX's advantages.

If IBM can ever cure the Condition Register bug and actually get the 750GX working reliably above 1GHz then even the latest 1.6GHz G4 will have trouble staying ahead of it.

[Argo]

I doubt a lot that a 3 GHZ pc running emulated 68k apps is faster than amigaone running native PPC apps

Well, does anyone have any speed comparisons or benchmarks?
How about a 68k emulated app on a 3 GHz or faster PC and it's native port on OS 4.0 or Morphos?

[Argo]

WinUAE is nice and all but I would never replace my A1 with AOS 4 to a PC with WinUAE. I've tried WinUAE on a PIV 2.4GHz and an AMD 2700+ and yes it was fast but not even close to how it feels using a real Amiga and limited to AOS 3.9.

I'd say that goes for most things. Which is better, a classic car kit or a real classic car?
Nothing beats the real thing, accept no immiations.

[Piru]

@DrBombcrater

IBM tells 750GX is up to 18% faster than 750CX with the same clock (in some memory intensive test I would assume). Obviously it depends much on the application. If the specific code snippet ran out of L2 cache before, it will be much faster than with 750CX. 750GX also implements some in-between cache buffers and other tricks, which all help, to a point.

However, 750GX is still pretty much the basic 750 design. It doesn't really go much faster when the code is executing inside the cache, except of course due to the higher clockrate.

Further, to get most out of 7447 one needs to optimize the code for the deeper pipeline in mind to make sure all execution units stay busy, and that there are minimal number of pipeline flushes. 750CX and 750GX handle unoptimized "generic" ppc code very efficiently, due to small depth of the pipeline.

I believe this is the source of the misconception that 750GX would be as fast or much faster than 7447. In some specific test cases, 750GX with high clock might get good and even better results than 7447 with smaller L2 cache.

However, in pure number crunching, or when designing the code to fit the available L2, taking advantage of the deeper pipeline (avoiding pipeline flushes specifically) not to mention the 4 AltiVec units, I believe 7447 eats 750GX's alive.

Personally I'd pick the 7447 over 750GX any day.

[Argo]

all the Amiga machines I have run  AmigaOS in one version or another on them and for me all they are Amigas.

Yeah, It's kind of like "What is a Real Mac?" Look at the original Mac and then sit a Modern Mac next to it.

[itix]

The Ultimate Amiga (which of the above is best)

Amiga 5000 with AAA chips.

[FastRobPlus]

drHirudo wrote:

The only real Amiga at pedantic level is the Amiga 1000. It doesn't even have a numbers on the case. Just Amiga and the logo.
It was designed by the father of the Amiga - Jay Miner. The others weren't.

My Hero!  This is what I've been saying all along.

The focus of these "Best Amiga" debates usually revolves around determining which Amiga is the fastest, most upgradeable, or most versatile.  But when I hear the question "Best Amiga" I immediately think "Best at being an Amiga".  That's the stock 1000, hands down.

[HotRod]

AOS 4 is very new, being updated all the time and not even released in a final version yet.

The classic would be AOS 3.x runing under WinUAE. One could say that XP is more of a classic then.

[Ranchu]

Why hasn't anybody mentioned AROS?

[amigadave]

Stirred up much more than I intended.  I have many Amigas (most would say too many as I have never gotten rid of any I have bought for myself or for other family members who have given them back over the years).  I have very fond memories of my first, the A1000.  I have not been using my Amigas lately but I am just finishing an office room addition to my home which will give me room to set up an Amiga or two and I would like to know what is the "State of the Art" for Amigas now.  I have an A4000 in a tower w/Phase 5 PPC at 233/060 at 60, Cybervision, Video Toaster/Flyer that I would like to bring up to its highest potential state, while keeping functionality of the Toaster/Flyer.  I want to add USB to allow use of my digital camera's USB card reader.  I want to network it with my Powerbook and my very ancient 400mHz PC.  The PC will eventually be delegated to being nothing more than a Linux Firewall I think.  A donated 2nd A1000 is awaiting a mini shuttle style PC MoBo transplant and Amiga Forever install, but my original A1000 will remain stock.  Too many good memories there to ever change or give up.