Amiga 3000 or Amiga 4000

[lillPiP]

Yeah, that's the question?!  :-D
What should I choose between?
An Amiga 3000 with it's built-in scandoubler or an Amiga 4000 with its AGA-chipset?

The A4000 has known problems with the simm-sockets and battery-leak, but can use a Mediatorboard in it's desktop-case.
The A3000 must be in a tower-case to use a Mediator..
Both machines has it's own positive and negative things..

Can I use all the accelerators from the A4000 or is this INT-2 modification neccessary? And what is this modification?

Kind regards
//Peter

[x56h34]

There's nothing wrong with buying both. :-)

[lillPiP]

Well, I already have a A1200-desktop and a A500T with Blizzard 2040, so one more computer is enough  :-D

[amiga4001]

The scandoubler in the 3000 is a great advantage!
The 4000 with the mediator lacks the videoslot so an internal scandoubler is not possible.
This means a external one with a switch.
While in the 3000 there is the scandoubler build in and saves you the high! cost of a second hand scandoubler.
Maybe it is wiser to buy the tower for the 3000 for the money of the scandoubler.
This hack for the 3000 is something of a wire soldering I believe.
Not to hard to do I believe.

[lillPiP]

I have looked at some pictures of the desktopmodels of the A3000 and the A4000, and the A3000 seems more nicer  :-)
I'm not interested in putting the A3000 in a tower.

[Holley]

The A4000 is much easier to accellerate, if you want a 'modded' machine take the A4K.

The A3000 is often quoted as the peak of Amiga design, much higher quality case, easy to solder etc, if you want the best 'stock'(ish) machine then the A3K is the one.

I have UAE for 'modded' (since it can go so much quicker than an '060, obscene amounts of memory etc), and an A3000 filled with period extras for the latter :-)

[lillPiP]

Well, just putting a 060 like the Cyberstorm and maybe the Cybervision 64/3D is more than enough for me I think.
Maybe I should go for the A3000 ?

[Crisisdog]

Personally, I love my A3000, specifically because of the sturdy case and internal scan-doubler.  However, it's been a big issue lately locating accelerator cards for this model.  I had a Cyberstorm MK-II with an 060, but it seems most of these boards will not work properly in an A3000 due to some SCSI / DMA issue.  I ended up forcing a WarpEngine 4040 into my A3000 case.  Naturally none of these boards have issues with the A4000, as this was the machine that most were designed to run in.  I also considered the AGA chipset advantage minimal when I still had my A1200.  I found using my A3000 and GVP Spectrum was adequate enough.

 :-D

[lillPiP]

Shouldn't it be possible to turn off the scsi on the acceleratorcards and only use the built-in on the A3000?

[ivibozic]

lillPiP wrote:
Yeah, that's the question?!  :-D
What should I choose between?
An Amiga 3000 with it's built-in scandoubler or an Amiga 4000 with its AGA-chipset?

The A4000 has known problems with the simm-sockets and battery-leak, but can use a Mediatorboard in it's desktop-case.
The A3000 must be in a tower-case to use a Mediator..
Both machines has it's own positive and negative things..

Can I use all the accelerators from the A4000 or is this INT-2 modification neccessary? And what is this modification?

Kind regards
//Peter

You're always guessing right that you should go with the better. Take the '040 beast. I bet it'll bite your brains out.

-- ive

[Acill]

I would go witht he A300 too. I had one from the day they came out and
love it. With the int 2 mod you can use just about any accelerator
yes, but you dont HAVE to do the int 2 mod. Its only used for the scsi
controllers on them. I used my csppc for many years without doing it,
I just used the internal scsi is all. The mod takes less time to do
then it takes to take the system apart to get to the solder points
9only two places get connected) I used mine in a Mirage tower and had
amediator before getting the Pegasos and selling it off. If you are
just starting out though I would recomend an A1200 and then get a
Pegasos II or an A1 now. The new systems need support and the old ones
are just getting older. AGA isnt all that. When the 1200 came out I
got one as well and ended up selling it off about a year later. The
AGA titles that came out were never worth me getting an A4000. I
thought of it as a step down from the A3000 to tell you the truth.

[melott]

I have to recomend the A3000 also.
I've never own an A4000 but I've owned an A1200. I didn't
think that much of the AGA chips.
In my A3000 I have a WarpEngine 040 @ 40 mhz and a CV 64
gfx card. Its loaded with 80 megs ram and I use the
WarpDrive SCSI for the internal HD and the built-in SCSI
for the external SCSI box with CD Rom and back-up HD.
This is a GREAT machine (I've never had the urge for
an A4000). The only thing I'd kind of like is a little
faster accelerator. (Like a 220 mhz ColdFire ;-))

[TjLaZer]

I had a Cyberstorm MK-II with an 060, but it seems most of these boards will not work properly in an A3000 due to some SCSI / DMA issue.

You had the bad buggy CSMKII card. I have the same card and it worked flawlessly in my A3000, which until recently I removed it and installed it in my A3000T!  No INT2 mod needed too since this card does not have built in SCSI.

As far as which one if you had to choose?  I would get the A4000, since it will be able to run ALL Amiga software, and it has AGA, which is cool.  :banana:

[Brian]

I won't try to hide the fact thatI find the A4000 to be a better machine in the long run... right out of the box stock the A3000 have more to offer but the A4000 will pass it with ease in the long run.

The builtin scandoubler of the A3000 VS AGA in the A4000. Of cause the scandoubler is a great thing but lack of AGA is bad. Internal scandoublers that clipp over chips on the motherboard DO EXIST for A4000 (in case you're thinking mediator) but the A3000 can't be upgraded to AGA. So the A4000 is better in the long run.

The A3000 get hotter and thus isn't designed to handle 040 or PPC boards, thought it can be done life expectancy on such boards might be shorter than in an A4000.

You need indeed to do the INT2 mod to take on all A4000 turbos and even then some won't work and others won't fit under the floppy bay of the A3000.

You probably need to change buster and other chips on the A3000 to be able to use cards such as the CyberVision64.

The lack of a 5.25" space in the A3000 is sad. Today we count CD in our systems as standard and then the A3000, although concidered a bigbox Amiga, need to be upgraded outside the main unit.

The battery issue of the A4000 is just as real on the A3000, don't fool yourself into thinking it's any more safe to keep the barreldrum battery in an A3000 than in an A4000. In fact the ones in the A3000 are older so should be worse off.

Conclusion, if you've starred yourself blind on an internal scandoubler to be the main thing for you and a thing you don't want to uppgrade to have, and the outer design of the A3000 pleases more than the A4000 you even though the interior leavs things to be deciered then the A3000 is for you... for all other reasons the A4000 is the one to get.

[MrZammler]

Although I do love my A3000 (looks cooler than an A4000!), it does have it's shortcomings.

I do miss the AGA chipset for those games that need it, plus I dont use the internal scandoubler anymore since I have a Picasso IV (but when I did use it it was great feature). Plus there's something I always missed: an internal cd-rom (call me weird, although my external CDRW works great).

There are of course it's pluses: Way nicer than an A4k (IMHO), all chips socketed (that's not standard on an A4k), can run AMIX out of the box, good and reliable scsi, SUN wanted it to be a low-cost UNIX box, etc.

My .2 euros ;-)