Classic HW, SAM440 or EFIKA ?

[Ruud]

takemehomegrandma wrote:

And that is in full screen with no frame skipping of course? (Just to be sure about the details... ;-))

Now that is a good point.  I must admit I haven't tried much with playing dvd's, it's not what I bought the SAM for  :-)  and I have dvd players coming out of my ears (a quick count reveals 8  :crazy: ).  I will do some tests and report results.

Cheers,
Rudi.

[Ruud]

gazgod wrote:

Having 2, 3, and 4 (and a g4 macmini that's currently my itunes server) I would say that the Peg2 + Morphos 2.1 is still my favourite.

Gaz

Do you prefer the Peg over SAM because of performance or because it runs Morphos?
Just curious.

Cheers,
Rudi.

[amigadave]

@Ruud,

what do you find so limiting about the EFIKA?  I know that it has near zero expandability and that it is not exactly a powerhouse, but what can you do on your SAM440ep that you can't do on your EFIKA?

I am just curious, as there doesn't seem to be any non-biased reviews comparing the two machines out there.  It you could provide one it would be useful to a lot of potential buyers.

I know it is hard not to be biased, one way or the other, when it comes to AmigaOS4.x vs MorphOS2.x, but if you can try to do so and give us a list of differences and things you do on your SAM440ep that you feel or know you cannot do on your EFIKA, I would like to see it.

There may be some MorphOS experts that will see your post that can tell you how to do some things with the EFIKA that you did not know, which will be helpful to me and other newbies to MorphOS.

[Ruud]

@amigadave

Yes it's difficult not to be biased.  I have to be honest and say that I don't yet know Morphos well enough to make a fair comparison of it to AOS4.1.  At the moment AOS4.1 feels closer to the Amiga experience that I am familiar with but that is not nessesarily a good thing. It may just prove a lot of peoples point that Morphos has evolved further.  For myself the SAM offers a more rounded hw setup compared to the Efika.  On my main computer I want a dvd drive/burner so that I can rip CD's to mp3 and burn discs.  The Efika's options are some what limited in this area.  The SAM's SATA gives me more hard drive options than the Efika.  The standard formfactor of the SAM means it's easy to change the case for a bigger/smaller just plain different one if I feel the need.  My SAM still has its PCI slot free, the Efika on the other hand is using its one for a video card.  And lastly the Efika is too light on memory for a main machine.
Don't get me wrong the Efika is a nice little machine and I wouldn't part with it (I just turned down an offer) but it's the hardware I find more limited than SAM NOT Morphos.  For a lot of people the Efika will meet their needs perfectly just not mine, and I certainly recommend it to anyone who wants a more cost effective next gen Amiga to go along side another machine.

Cheers,
Rudi.

[recidivist]

Has anyone used one of the Iomega or similar USB CD/DVD drives on efika?

[Ruud]

recidivist wrote:
Has anyone used one of the Iomega or similar USB CD/DVD drives on efika?

I'm hopefully going to be able to try one as there's an Iomega dvd burner at my girlfriends work (i'll just borrow it, for a while...). I'm not expecting great performance though. To be fair the performance on the SAM (running os4.1) will be poor as well due to the lack of usb2 drivers but you're not forced to go the usb route.

Cheers,
Rudi.

[gazgod]

Ruud wrote:

Do you prefer the Peg over SAM because of performance or because it runs Morphos?
Just curious.

Cheers,
Rudi.

Manly because it has a 1 gig g4, a gig of ram and pci slots so I can have USB2 that works (unlike the Sam).

Gaz

[takemehomegrandma]

amigadave wrote:
@Ruud,

what do you find so limiting about the EFIKA?  I know that it has near zero expandability and that it is not exactly a powerhouse, but what can you do on your SAM440ep that you can't do on your EFIKA?

Well, the Sam does have the interfaces you'd expect from a desktop machine. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the CPU performance you'd expect, and AFAIK all external controllers (including the GFX) shares the same PCI bus/bandwidth. So you could connect more gizmo's to the Sam than the Efika, but after that you will sit with about the same low computing performance.

[Ruud]

takemehomegrandma wrote:
Well, the Sam does have the interfaces you'd expect from a desktop machine. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the CPU performance you'd expect, and AFAIK all external controllers (including the GFX) shares the same PCI bus/bandwidth. So you could connect more gizmo's to the Sam than the Efika, but after that you will sit with about the same low computing performance.

I agree with you. The Sam is short on cpu performance, ram and video ram (unless you use the pci slot).  A bit like my A1200 when I got that!  Maybe that's why I like it  :lol:
I would prefer something approaching the spec of my Asus Eee Box for a small form factor AOS4.1/Morphos2.1 machine but that doesn't yet exist so I accept that and use/enjoy what I have.

Cheers,
Rudi.

[Hans_]

gazgod wrote:

Ruud wrote:

Do you prefer the Peg over SAM because of performance or because it runs Morphos?
Just curious.

Cheers,
Rudi.

Manly because it has a 1 gig g4, a gig of ram and pci slots so I can have USB2 that works (unlike the Sam).

Gaz

The SAM motherboard has USB2 ports so you don't need a PCI card for USB 2.0. The problem is that Amiga OS 4.1 currently doesn't have the EHCI drivers required to use USB 2.0. This will be solved in due course. Having a G4 is nice though.

Hans

[takemehomegrandma]

Ruud wrote:

I agree with you. The Sam is short on cpu performance, ram and video ram (unless you use the pci slot).

Well, it wasn't designed to be a desktop computer, but for industrial customers AFAIK.

I would prefer something approaching the spec of my Asus Eee Box for a small form factor AOS4.1/Morphos2.1 machine but that doesn't yet exist so I accept that and use/enjoy what I have.

I would prefer a 8640 (the single core version) + SB600 combo (if it can be done). There has been discussions about such configurations over at powerdeveloper.org. You would get:

1x (or 2x) e600 (G4) cores with Altivec @ 1250MHz (and 1MB L2 cache per core)
1x PCI-Express 16x slot for Graphic Cards (8 lanes connected)
0-6 PCI 2.3 slots or on board chips (depending on the board design)
4x Gigabit Ethernet
10x USB 2.0
PATA (2 devices)
4x SATA 2.0
The standard Serial/Parallel/Floppy/PS2 interfaces (if you want them)
AC97 Audio

This would essentially be a 2-chip computer, and I'm sure it could be made quite cheap.

I'd like to see A-cube making a board like this. But maybe this isn't what the industrial customers wants?

[Ruud]

takemehomegrandma wrote:

Well, it wasn't designed to be a desktop computer, but for industrial customers AFAIK.

I'm not sure many industrial customers would pay that kind of money for a board with Sam's specs.  I wonder if the whole industrial angle was a back up plan if the AOS4.1 deal didn't happen or maybe it was the other way around?

I would prefer a 8640 (the single core version) + SB600 combo (if it can be done). SNIP

This would essentially be a 2-chip computer, and I'm sure it could be made quite cheap.

Yeah that sounds more like it. But what are the chances?  The flex version of Sam seems to be next and it offers nothing over the current model performance wise.

Cheers,
Rudi.

[amigadave]

recidivist wrote:
Has anyone used one of the Iomega or similar USB CD/DVD drives on efika?

Yes, I have a USB DVD burner connected to my EFIKA, but of course the 1.1USB interface can't cope with DVD burning and might even have trouble burning to a CD.  I have not tried yet.

I have only used it to load programs so far.

[takemehomegrandma]

Ruud wrote:

takemehomegrandma wrote:

Well, it wasn't designed to be a desktop computer, but for industrial customers AFAIK.

I'm not sure many industrial customers would pay that kind of money for a board with Sam's specs.  I wonder if the whole industrial angle was a back up plan if the AOS4.1 deal didn't happen or maybe it was the other way around?

Well, who knows? But that's what they say at least...

I would prefer a 8640 (the single core version) + SB600 combo (if it can be done). SNIP

This would essentially be a 2-chip computer, and I'm sure it could be made quite cheap.

Yeah that sounds more like it. But what are the chances?  The flex version of Sam seems to be next and it offers nothing over the current model performance wise.

Cheers,
Rudi.

The new Sam will possibly be a little cheaper, and you could choose your own graphics card (and pick one with more memory for instance), although only PCI ones.

I think they should ditch that, and make a 8640+SB600 combo instead! :-) Then the Sam would become more worthy of the 540 Euros...

[orb85750]

I noticed no option #6, which might be
AROS on x86 with emulator (Amiga Forever)
for backward compatibility.  If this is
a stupid idea, I'm willing to accept that
it is, but please tell me why.  (Still
learning!)  I think so many of us are in the
same "what to do" boat right now.  Thanks, -Dave

P.S.  Option #5 might end up being the most
powerful, but there is something not so
attractive about taking used-up Apple stuff
to run Amiga.  It just seems a little dirty
to have my Amiga not only *look* like an Apple,
but actually to *be* an Apple.  ;-)
----------------------

1. SAM440 + Amiga OS4.x
2. EFIKA + MOS
3. PEG2 + MOS
4. ClassicHW with PPC + Amiga OS4.x
5. Mac Mini G4 + MOS

[takemehomegrandma]

orb85750 wrote:
I noticed no option #6, which might be
AROS on x86 with emulator (Amiga Forever)
for backward compatibility.  If this is
a stupid idea, I'm willing to accept that
it is, but please tell me why.  (Still
learning!)  I think so many of us are in the
same "what to do" boat right now.  Thanks, -Dave

AROS isn't usable in any serious way. It completely lacks the native versions of Amiga applications, and it has no backwards compatibility or 68k/PPC CPU emulation whatsoever, and unless you run it hosted on Linux it's kind of limited in what hardware it supports AFAIK (in other words - don't expect it to install it natively on any new x86 machine with whatever hardware as easily as you install Windows).

UAE emulates a hardware classic Amiga. As such, it runs an OS within the OS. This can in no way be compared to the seamless 68k emulation in MorphOS for instance, which I think is what you may want. If you want UAE you'd better run WinUAE on Windows IMHO.

P.S.  Option #5 might end up being the most
powerful, but there is something not so
attractive about taking used-up Apple stuff
to run Amiga.  It just seems a little dirty
to have my Amiga not only *look* like an Apple,
but actually to *be* an Apple.  ;-)

It becomes what OS you put in there. As for the exterior looks, nobody can claim that a Sam looks like an Amiga either. If you so strongly dislike the looks of an Apple case, I guess you'd have to find/build your own box to put it in. Perhaps that would be worth it for you. Personally I couldn't care less, as long as I get the fastest Amiga experience *ever seen*, at a *very* decent cost! :-)