Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!yale!ox.com!hela!widener!ukma!eng.ufl.edu!math.ufl.edu!uflorida!caen!umich!vela!m.cs.uiuc.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!pa.dec.com!bacchus!mwm From: mwm@pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction Subject: Re: Upgrade to a 68010 or 68020? Message-ID: Date: 28 May 91 15:36:29 GMT References: <1991May22.075230.28400@athena.mit.edu> Sender: news@pa.dec.com (News) Distribution: global Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 51 In-Reply-To: ringo@athena.mit.edu's message of 22 May 91 07:52:30 GMT In article <1991May22.075230.28400@athena.mit.edu> ringo@athena.mit.edu (John L. Kimble) writes: Hi there, I recently bought an A2000HD. Although I'm fairly sure that I can't afford buying a 68030 microprocessor for at least a year, I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice as to possibly picking up a 68010 or 68020 as a "quick fix." How are the speed improvements? Any ideas as to $$$ costs? Any particular compatibility problems to be wary of? A 68010 is cheap (~$10), and is pretty much just a swap, as its pin compatible with the 68000. I found about a 5% improvment on some random tests; if you code for the '010 specifically you might see as much as 25%. I don't recommend this if your machine is still under warranty; it just isn't worth it. Costs for cards 32 bit cards without 32 bit memory start at around $400 (excellent street price) and go up from there. If you get a CPU slot card (recommended), it's more like $600. However, you don't get much of a win from an '020 or '030 unless you've got 32-bit memory in the system. With an asynch '020 or '030 board, the best you're liable to see for an applications is 50%. With a board running in synch with the Zorro bus, you might see a 100% improvment. Adding any 32 bit memory roughly doubles the price - you've usually got to do a second card, plus memory interface. However, most applications will do much better than that 100% best without memory, even on a slow '020 with a losing application. 200% would be at the low end, and 500% would be the high end on an '020. The above numbers are for "general purpose" type things, derived from benchmarks, running editors and C compilers. If you've got something specific you want to go faster, you might see much better numbers. An extreme but common case is ray tracing. That's FP intensive, so an '020 card with an '881 will be a major win, even without 32-bit memory. Compatibility issues: Any well-written software should run on all these processors without any problems. The A2500 has been around long enough that there's no excuse for software not working on turbocharged amigas. Some early applications break on any of them by using protected mode instructions. Some games have processor-dependent timing. Copy protection is notorious for not working with a accelerated Amiga. These mereley means they aren't well written.