how fast is a 040 cpu?

[lassie]

Hi i was thinking to get a 040 cpu to my Amiga 4000 sometime in the future. do you know if it will make my Amiga much faster than it is now? i have 030 in it now, and i have 18 mb ram in my Amiga 4000

[SamuraiCrow]

It depends on if you get Commodore's original CPU daughterboard or the WarpEngine daughterboard.  The WarpEngine makes the CPU go about twice as fast by putting the memory sockets on the daughterboard which reduces the distance that the signals have to travel back and forth.  In general an '040 is twice as fast per clock cycle, as what an '030 is.

[matt3k]

If you pickup a warp engine, not only will you get fast memory access but also much fast i/o with the ncr scsi conroller.

Go with a warp engine, nice boost in speed and useability.

[runequester]

About twice as fast is a good rule of thumb, though it does depend on what you do with it.

Some software will not feel much faster, while other things will run much much better.

Heat can be a bit of a concern, so bear that in mind.

[lassie]

okay thanks for your answers :-)

[Karlos]

Twice as fast seems like an underestimation to me. Most of the benchmarks I've ran in my time show that the 25MHz 040's I've owned have been 1.5 - 2x as fast as 030's running at 50MHz, i.e. 3-4x faster per clock.

This, of course, is on boards having their own Fast RAM. The stock 3640 board for the A4000 is crippled by the memory interface.

[lassie]

hi will it say that the stock 040 is not so much faster than my 030 i have now?
remember i only have 18 mb ram.
what if i buy a 128 mb ram board and put in, with my 030 cpu will it increase speed

[Karlos]

hi will it say that the stock 040 is not so much faster than my 030 i have now?
remember i only have 18 mb ram.
what if i buy a 128 mb ram board and put in, with my 030 cpu will it increase speed

If you can get an 040 board with it's own local memory, the 030 won't see it for dust. Adding RAM to the system through the Z3 will just give you more memory to do stuff, you won't see any real speed increase.

An 040 board for the A4000 really only makes sense if it comes with sockets for attaching local RAM.

[lassie]

okay thanks :-) my Amiga runs good for 2D games, but i can barely run doom good, with half screen size. so its not so fast,

[utri007]

040 25mhz with local ram, is about 2x faster than 030 50mhz

[nscaleworld]

When you get an 040 board check for three things:
 

• 040 chip is in a socket, not soldered on
• heatsink or fan is attached with hardware, not glued on
• memory is standard 30 or 72 pin simms

Also make sure that all of the contacts in the cpu connector are shiny.  None of them should be dull.  If any are, do not buy the 040 board.  Stay away from GVP crap.  If you can afford it, buy a German-made 040 board.

[Ami_GFX]

The 68030 CPU board has the same memory issues and an A3640 will be noticibly faster--around the 4x per clock cycle, as previously said. A CPU card with onboard memory will speed up things a lot more due to faster memory access. The fastest accellerators are the Phase 5 cyberstorms but they are spendy. Warp Engines are a good alternative and usually sell for quite a bit less. If you get a chance to get an A3640 for $100 or less, I would get it. My A4000 was noticbly faster with a stock 3640 25mhz CPU than my 68030 A2500 with a DKB 2630 memory expansion. Sysinfo will tell you how fast your system is in reference to other systems:


http://aminet.net/util/moni/SysInfo.lha


I have had a couple of GVP T-Rexes and they aren't bad in build quality but the custom simms and almost impossible to get additional memory board are what really limit them. The T-Rex II has SCSI and standard Simm sockets and would be a good bet but they are fairly rare compared to the Warp Engine and Phase 5 boards.

[Duce]

I had both a stock '030 and a stock '040 A4000 back in the day and found the A4000 with the '040 a lot snappier as a whole.

That being said, I was never a big gamer on my Miggies, but general usage wise the '040 machine was a lot nicer to use.

The stock 3640 cards are pretty cheap these days, so not too costly of an option if you want a bit of a bump up performance wise.

[SpeedGeek]

The 68030 CPU board has the same memory issues and an A3640 will be noticibly faster--around the 4x per clock cycle, as previously said.

Correction, the A3630 actually has faster access to all motherboard resources (including fast memory) than a stock A3640. It is true that most 3rd party 040 cards provide local fast memory which is faster than motherboard fast memory but that's not the reason why the stock A3640 has slower access than the A3630.

It's because of inefficient state machine design and C= wanting to make the A3640 a quick and cheap 040 upgrade solution.

[Crumb]

a3640 is a good upgrade from 3630/25. You can easily overclock 3640 to 30Mhz safely (remember that adding a fan is very important) and the speed increase is noticeable, it will sync slightly better with motherboard ram.