Joined: 14-Mar-2003 Posts: 5211
From: Ylikiiminki, Finland
@digitaldisaster
" PCI-X as it stands is simpl not fast enough, it is also not designed with processors in mind, I don't knwo the details as I ahve never ahd the misfortune to design a PCI device but I suspect there are a lot of bits the would not provide an optimal bus for a processor."
But I meant that the CPU would have all it needs on it's own card. PCI-X would only connect to GPU, keyboard, firewire etc. For example BlizzardPPC cards have all the CPU needs on the CPU card. A1200 HW does not stand as the bottlenec of the CPU.
"A replacment motherboard, well I supose you could drag the custom chipsets out of retiremnet, possibly hire some of the old staff to fisnish the AAA chipset, then you would have to get Freescale to fab new 68060's or design a system using the coldfire and modify the custom chipsets to use that then emulate the nessacery instructions in software mode. But what would be the point, they are so old they no longer have the advantage that they had in their day, "
Absolutely right. And that was not what I meant.
I meant with the step C) that you would replace all legacy stuff of the A1200, except perhaps the A1200 keyboard connector. No AGA, no Paula, nothing to stand on the way as the bottlenec.
"a G5 could emulate them and a 68060 better than they can perform."
Right. And with AOS4 you would not need to emulate anything. (uness someone is running 68 apps, identical situation with A1 HW)
CONTINUATION:
"but there is still a lot of other trafic to flood that bus if it is the only way to the processor,"
Care to elaborate?
Because I think: - the GPU-3DRAM needs the highest bandwidth. (does not affect PCI-X traffic at all) - CPU-QDR RAM needs the second highest bandwidth (does not affect PCI-X...) - CPU-CPU (SMP) needs the third highest bandwidth (does not affect PCI-X if there is single multi-CPU card) - then comes the bandwidth of system RAM - GFX card RAM (this would affect PCI-X) - the rest is peanuts and insignifficant when compared to any of the above
Unless you can tell something that I've missed.
It will take several years before AmigaSW put any stress to AGP1x or 2x speeds on the "system RAM to GFX card RAM" -bus and as long as there is "enough" GFX card memory, the system RAM - GFX card RAM traffic load stays pretty low.
But ofcourse if we would be building a HW that wipes the floor with everything else .... (not realistic)
_________________ - KimmoK // For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA // // Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?