@Null

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A much lower priced G4+CPU combination would be much better than a G5 mobo.

In my POV, G5 is would be a better choice since any "32bit to 64bit? transition phase will involve some migration activities in terms of operation system and applications. The degree of ?pain? in transition phase is dependant on a solution involved.

In another words, if a biz needs to migrate to another platform (from a 32bit solution) why not a 64bit based solution? A G5 can surf the mainstream 32bit-to-64bit transition path.

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Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Null

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Null wrote: @digitaldisaster A much lower priced G4+CPU combination would be much better than a G5 mobo. We need cheaper A1s, that's my opinion.

I think that part of this picture just isn't cheaper price. The reason is you're talking, at least in USA from Software Hut, $999 for a 933Mhz G4 w/ motherboard. Add the rest of the stuff to build a system and you're roughly at $1,500. For $500 more you could get a 1.8Ghz G5 Mac system with a better video card, Firewire 800, USB 2.0. For an additional $500, $2,500, you get a dual 2Ghz G5 system w/ PCI-X, double the harddrive, and double the memory.

Thus, while I agree that a less expensive G4 might work, if someone can keep the G5 pricing about the same while greatly increasing the speed of the system and updating the components to the newer faster standards I see this as an attractive machine. Having Amiga run a bit closer to the pack for the same amount of money is something that'll help attract power users and new users as the value/$ will be more akin to the Mac, Windows, and Linux systems available.

As for a cheaper G4 type of machine, Eyetech has said that while someone can use the Mini-ITX Amiga for their desktop machine it's not their primary market for this form factor. So someone can use the Mini-ITX for a lower cost hardware. Having a G5 ATX Amiga wouldn't step on this part of Eyetech's market. It may have impact on their G4 ATX, however. Amiga, Inc. in the past said they welcome multiple hardware vendors to create Amiga machines, so they themselves are looking for some competition within the Amiga hardware space.

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Before starting donating money to you digital, i'd wait for an official word from Hyperion.

Amiga, Inc. is the company that owns and sells the AmigaOS. KMOS owns Amiga, Inc. Hyperion is a contracted developer. I'd think Amiga, Inc.'s commitment to back the G5 would be great. I'd doubt that at this juncture Amiga, Inc. would give full commitment, but I could be wrong. However, my take is that Amiga, Inc. would need to be approached early on and give a knod to looking at the G5 solution once running to make a determination.

Another criticizm I've seen leveled here is, if you don't have enough to spend on a test motherboard you don't have enough money to spend on manufacturing the board itself. While I understand this I think there's a couple of ways to get around this point. Amiga, Inc's approval is very important first. Second how to manufacture comes into play. If Amiga, Inc. approves I'd hope they'd be willing to partner with the G5 hardware developer to find a manufacturing parter, collect some inital funding, and heck it still doesn't exclude Eyetech. Perhaps Eyetech would be willing to manufacture the product and sell through their channels. There's quite a few options here and all are important to consider. But, I believe that a working prototype is most important to be able to show Amiga, Inc and anyone else that yes it works and then all can discuss what/how this is important to the Amiga market.

@Null

It would be dificult to do a cheaper G4 motherboard than G5 if the reports that the G5 CPU's are cheaper than the G4's is ture, which perosnally I can beleive given teh quantity and speed which IBM can produce them comapred to Motorola when operating as full capacity. Also being a large company would help as you can charge smaller margins.
Also, if the reports are to be beleived, IBM are trying to push the G5 mainstream by supporting motherboard manufacturers. This is a perfect opportunity to get the A1 to the forfront fo not just PowerPC technology but copmuting technology in general. The G5 is a new chip, one that is set to replace the G4 and, like the G4 did to a certain extent with the G3, sideline it to low end systems. The G5 is not just faster in terms of clock cycles and able to process larger ammounts of data because it's 64bit but it is also more effiecient per clock cycle, it has more instructuion units IIRC as well and far more advanced branch prediction logic. The G5 is a processor built to give real world performance, not be benchmark friendly and as such is blisteringly fast. The high speed bus's that are arround the 1ghz level are a huge boost over the 100mhz bus of the A1 of the 167mhz bus of the last G4 PowerMac's. The bus is not shared, each processor has iot's own for communicating with the northbridge which removes a large bottleneck from SMP systems ready for when AOS4 supports it. The Hypertransport iunterface on the Northbridge allows new southbridges to be connected, not the ancient Via ones, so old they don't even feature on the website anymore, which were connected via PCI and so hoging the bandwith that exopansion cards need. The new northbridge also features 2xPCI-X bus's for high speed 64bit PCI-X ports and an 8x AGP port, a lot faster than the 2x on Mai's Articia S or the 0x on Marvell's ;).
Also, the G5 is cheap enough now for apple to use it in their iMac's so it must be possible to build sub £1000 systems and therefore will bring the cost of A1 motherboards down (hopefully).