Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!att!cord!nsw
From: nsw@cord.UUCP (Neil Weinstock)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: New GVP 68030 card:  WOW!!! (somewhat commercial)
Summary: Hold on to your hats, boys, it's party time.
Keywords: GVP 68030
Message-ID: <741@cord.UUCP>
Date: 18 Mar 89 05:37:34 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The Flying Squid Patrol
Lines: 57

Well, I thought I'd play the "run home from the user's group meeting and
post about what was presented" game.  It was the March JAUG meeting.

MASSIVE DISCLAIMER:  The info below is impressions from a 1 hour sales pitch
and demo.  I am not affiliated with GVP in any way.  I apologize if this
posting is very commercial in nature, but I feel that this is a very
significant product, and people ought to know about it.

Well, then, let's get right to it.  GVP introduced a 68030 card.  Asynchronous.
Initially in 16 MHz or 25 MHz versions, and they're working on a 33 MHz
version.  Socket for 68882 with its own clock.

Also to be introduced is a 32 bit memory card with either 4 or 8 MB (which
will naturally cost a bundle, memory prices being what they are at the moment.)
It takes advantage of the 030's burst mode to run at 0 wait states most if
not all the time (not sure of the details here).

The 68030 *can* DMA into the 32 bit memory.

The CPU card *has* sockets for EPROMS to allow UNIX to run.

The CPU card also has, built in, a hard disk interface for some special
variety of Quantum drive (not SCSI or ST506, something weird).  This I found
a bit odd, but hey.

Some numbers?  Well, they ran a Ronin benchmark which showed the 68030,
running at 20 MHz (not a version they will be selling), motoring along at over
4 times the speed of a stock 2000.  That's *without* any 32 bit memory.
With the 32 bit memory, the benchmark came in at over 8x the standard Amiga.
Major caveat here, we had little idea what the Ronin benchmark was doing
exactly.  But in talking with the GVP folks afterwards, they said that they 
were typically finding that those numbers were reasonable in their tests.  They
said that they were finding that their 25 MHz 030 board without 32 bit memory
or floating point processor consistently outperformed a 2620 with 2 MB of
32 bit RAM.  Make of that what you will.

They demoed running a Mandlebrot set generator with it.  Filled the screen 
in around 5 seconds.

Anyway, this all sounds too good to be true.  Maybe it is.  But under any
circumstance, GVP appears to have a real powerhouse board on their hands,
one which would certainly make Mac II owners jealous.

Oh yeah, you wanna know the price? For the 16 MHz 030, $849, and for the 
25 MHz 030, $999.  These are not typos.  These are not introductory prices.  
4 MB of 32 bit RAM will be ~$2000.  Sounds like it would be worthwhile, though,
to own the CPU without the RAM, at which point it becomes *very* affordable.
Actually, the pricing here is so low as to be implausible.  But it appears to 
be real.

Did I mention that Max Toy was there also?  What a meeting.  Things are
getting fun in Amigaland!

 /.- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ...\
/ Neil Weinstock | att!cord!nsw     | "One man's garbage is another     \
\ AT&T Bell Labs | nsw@cord.att.com | man's prune danish." - Harv Laser /
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