Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!rochester!kodak!sisd!jeh From: jeh@sisd.kodak.com (Ed Hanway) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga Competitiveness. Message-ID: <1990Sep28.193008.6137@sisd.kodak.com> Date: 28 Sep 90 19:30:08 GMT References: <1990Sep27.203058.601@sisd.kodak.com> Sender: news@sisd.kodak.com Organization: Printer Products Division Eastman Kodak Lines: 65 In article peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) writes: >In article <1990Sep27.203058.601@sisd.kodak.com> jeh@sisd.kodak.com (Ed Hanway) writes: >>peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) writes: >>>Here is another opinion on 68000 Amiga's. Why doesn't Commodore start >>>shipping them with a 14Mhz 68000? [...] >> >>I doubt if it would be worth it. There are third-party boards that >>piggyback a 14MHz 68000 + glue circuitry into the 68000 socket, and >>I think their overall speedup is something like 10-20%. The problem is >>that the rest of the machine (memory, custom chips, etc.) still runs at >>7MHz (and changing that would be a _major_ redesign). [...] >> >>IMHO, it takes at least a 50% speed increase for a machine to "feel faster." >>Anything less isn't worth it unless you're running programs that take hours >>or days at a time to run. >> > >Hmmmm, like any of the raytracers for example? Or compiling large programs? Yes, for an 8-hour ray tracing, saving one hour would be significant. Ray tracing, however, depends almost entirely on floating point speed. A 14MHz 68000 won't do a whole lot for that, but an add-on 68881 might. Compiling depends on more than raw CPU speed -- it makes intensive use of memory and I/O. I'd bet that most of that 10-20% evaporates. >So let's revise the statement to include only Amiga 2000's, on the basis >that most of the 500's are bought for games. (I know, not everyone does, but >the 2000 is supposed to be for "serious" work). Now, since the accelerator >boards only advantage (aside from the better processor) is the memory, why >can't we use a faster 16 bit memory board? That would certainly work, but it would require a lot more design effort than simply cranking up the clock rate of the CPU. After going through all of the trouble to design in a faster CPU and memory subsystem, you might as well design it around a 32-bit CPU as well. 16 MHz 68020's and 68030's are pretty cheap right now. >In fact, the more I think about it, doesn't the 2500 come with 100ns memory >chips? If those are fast enough for 25Mhz, shouldn't the 120ns chips in >an 8UP! board be good enough for a 14Mhz 68000? The 2500/30 uses 100ns chips and requires 2 wait states at 25MHz. I don't know the exact specs, but 120ns chips can certainly run faster than 7MHz. The problem is that the 8UP!, like all Zorro II cards that I know of, is designed to run on a 7MHz bus. I have a 2500/30 with 4 megs of 32-bit RAM and 4 megs on an 8UP, and performance drops off drastically after the 32-bit RAM is filled. >Finally, even if it is only a 20% increase, 14Mhz would make a better >marketing point, something that the Amiga needs..... I'm not denying that a low-cost 14MHz Amiga would be nice, but I'd rather see Commodore's efforts directed toward the higher end. I think that the 16MHz A3000 is in a good marketing position (should blow away any 386sx) and will get better as the price drops in the future. 500 and 2000 owners already have a nice selection of expansion options. I'd rather see Commodore expand on the A3000 rather than devoting more time to their older lines. Of course, I'm definitely not saying that they should abandon everything but the A3000, just that their new product efforts should concentrate on the machine with the most potential. A 14MHz Amiga would evoke yawns from the PC press, while a 68040 Amiga might attract some deserved attention. Ed Hanway uunet!sisd!jeh