@Templario

Quote:

Templario wrote: @AP I'm sorry I haven't one Pegasos and I not remember its CPU speed, here I try to give ideas, because with the heart always I recommend the Sam, because I'm Sam users and Sam fan.

No problem. SAMs are fine, I owned a SAMflex in the past and it was fun to use, too. In addition to that ACube has good service/support.

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AmigaOne X5000/40, 2.2 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, Radeon R9 280X, M-Audio Revolution 5.1, 240 GB SSD

@pavlor

PPC440 delivers 2DMIPS/Mhz.
PPC460 has L2 and (IIRC) faster memory interface.
L2 should enable 20% more performance, but for example in blender it seems PPC460 performs even better (30%+ faster per Mhz?).

So... it would be interesting to get more G3 vs PPC460 results to be sure.

(and when compared to G3, 440&460 have those DSP instructions (I'm not aware if GCC can automatically optimize code to use any of it, but according to IBM those instructions improve performance 25%...50% in some algorithms).)

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- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

Quote:

L2 should enable 20% more performance, but for example in blender it seems PPC460 performs even better (30%+ faster per Mhz?).

OGR, Blender, emulators... all benchmarks I saw show G3 (at least 750FX) is faster per MHz than 460EX (which is only 440 core with L2 cache).

Modern G3 CPU (750FX, 750GX) is as fast (or even faster) per MHz as G4. Except AltiVec of course.

@thread

How usable is the Sam 460 in its current state? Because with out overlay or the other alternatives it sounds pretty unusable, also Hans apparently is pretty busy with his business development and the drivers reportedly are very complex and alooooooooonnnnngggggg way off, If this is true a Pegasos 2 sounds more viable.

_________________
Amiga A1200T - TF1260 - R9200 - Indivision AGA MK3
Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@Fairdinkem

Bump

_________________
Amiga A1200T - TF1260 - R9200 - Indivision AGA MK3
Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@Fairdinkem

To my understanding overlay might work with onboard SM502, otherwise one needs to wait for textured video to use overlay(kind of) on NG AOS4 HW.

3D acceleration is available only via old Radeon PCI cards.

And also some sound issues seem to still be on SAM460.

So, if one can get cheaply peg2 it might be better for AOS4 but once RadeonHD starts to get 3D support & GPU assisted video, one will start to look for PCIe capable HW....

For me... I wait untill there's Gallium3D and multicore support before my next HW. Untill then it's SAM440 & MosMini for me. (my next HW must have 1GB for GPU to get rid of compositing limitations)

Last edited by KimmoK on 07-Jan-2013 at 11:42 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 07-Jan-2013 at 11:40 AM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 07-Jan-2013 at 07:54 AM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@Fairdinkem

i had exactly the same dilemma you did about a year ago. i eventually chose the pegasos2, and still think that is the right choice for the moment; but the SAM460 is finally starting to fill in the blanks that might make it a better choice. here's the bottom line:

* 3D graphics are only available for R200-series graphics cards currently. this means being stuck with wazp3D on your SAM460 so most games requiring miniGL will be very slow indeed. once warp3D comes for HD5000 and HD6000-series cards, 3D graphics on the SAM460 will not only be possible, but much more capable than on the pegasos2 today.

* on-board sound is fully supported on the pegasos2 with no issues, so you don't need a sound card. the on-board sound is supported on the SAM460 as well, but buggy, so for the moment you need a sound card to ensure flawless capture and playback. this is a problem on the SAM460 because only PCI card slot is available and most people need it for a SATA card, but....

* up until recently the PCIe 1x slot on the SAM460 was fairly useless. but now with updates to the AOS kernel the OS can 'see' devices beyond supported PCIe-to-PCI bridges. which means you can now put a SATA card there and free up the PCI slot. the pegasos2 does not have a SATA controller on-board, so you need a third-party SATA card with it regardless.

* video playback on the pegasos2 is going to be superior until OS4.2 and a full openGL implementation is available. that could be released tomorrow or in a few years (based on history, assume the latter). altivec also speeds up video/audio encoding/decoding as well, so if you're going to use the machine as a media center, the pegasos2 is the way to go until everything is done on the OS side. once it is, the SAM460 should be fine.

* the SAM460 is much more responsive in daily use, and just 'feels' faster. but anything which is CPU-intensive will be more performant on the pegasos2. this isn't going to change in the future because of the underlying hardware architecture: SATA, memory, and I/O in general will be faster on the SAM460. the CPU itself will be more performant on the pegasos2. based on my experience with acube and the SAM440ep-flex, you can be assured that acube engineers will continue to find ways of speeding up your SAM460 as time goes on.

* the pegasos2 uses more heat, requires a larger power supply, and will have fan noise. the SAM460 uses less power and can be run silently. the pegasos2 is used and without warranty support. the SAM460 is new and comes with support.

looking at the situation today and today only, the pegasos2 looks to be the better bet: faster CPU, 3D graphics support, better sound. of course you'll need to purchase a SATA card and USB2 card for it, but those are inexpensive. once everything is done on the OS side, the SAM460 will be a much better buy: faster video, faster 3D graphics, fully supported on-board sound, faster memory subsystem, more responsive feel, new hardware with warranty, and so forth.

so if you're buying for 'today,' go with the pegasos2. if you're buying for what the system will eventually be, go for the SAM460. i already have my pegasos2 and once warp3D for radeonHD cards finally ships, i'll be pulling the trigger and replacing with a SAM460. let us know what you decide and why.

-- eliyahu

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"Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. When the laws do not operate, there is no reality. All of this is unreal."

@eliyahu

Not so yet

Quote:

eliyahu wrote: @Fairdinkem * up until recently the PCIe 1x slot on the SAM460 was fairly useless. but now with updates to the AOS kernel the OS can 'see' devices beyond supported PCIe-to-PCI bridges. which means you can now put a SATA card there and free up the PCI slot. the pegasos2 does not have a SATA controller on-board, so you need a third-party SATA card with it regardless.

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@Thread

Is there a graphics card that I can put in the sam 460 that is supported by OS4.x with overlay?

_________________
Amiga A1200T - TF1260 - R9200 - Indivision AGA MK3
Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@eliyahu

Very nice write up! This is a good thread and I learned a few things.

However, about the below quote:

Quote:

* the pegasos2 uses more heat, requires a larger power supply, and will have fan noise. the SAM460 uses less power and can be run silently. the pegasos2 is used and without warranty support. the SAM460 is new and comes with support.

This is not completely factual. The pegasos 2 does Not require a large power supply, (as a matter of fact at the SCALE LInux conference in Southern California we had micro atx cases with low profile gfx cards and it was Very low wattage) and the heat is kind of a non issue. Many people have silent, passively cooled Pegasos 2 machines with normal ambient temps. At genesi we had a couple like this. You can see old threads on morphzone.org about it as well. As as fan noise, you can do a custom silent type fan or passive as stated earlier. The vantec fan I have on it is pretty low db. Alot of the guys I mentioned earlier with passive cooling of the g4 have a large, slow speed silent fan for additional circulation.

As far as warranty, you are correct any Peg2 or ODW "Open Desktop Workstation" now is out of warranty. However, bPlan still does service the boards for a fee. Which i'm sure is reasonable. What is the warranty on a new Sam460 board? Also,dont forget a used peg2 system is probably 1/2 the price of a new Sam 460.

If it wasnt for the overlay, 3d, and sound issues on 460 it would be the clear and easy choice. Especially now that Morphos runs on it as well as modern Linux Distros (modern meaning current) Peg2 has great linux support but for older kernels and distros. I think its fantastic the Amiga development community has a few guys getting nice linux support. One thing cool is the Peg2 runs OSX pretty damn well. I had it working nicely with networking , sound, even cd burning! Also played Baldurs Gate on Mac On linux with os9 at full speed full screen and full sound!

damn, I wish SAM440ep-flex had PPC460 instead of PPC440.
It would be the ideal low end for now... IMO.


(I wonder how big bounty would be required to get such a product)

Last edited by KimmoK on 08-Jan-2013 at 10:39 AM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@Fairdinkem

You would have to use the pci slot and a Radeon 9250 card.At the moment you would have to use the onbard SATA for your Hardrive. It is curently PIO only .

Once the pcie to PCI bridge issues are resolved you could use a PCI SATA controller in the PCIEx1 slot with a PCIEx1 to PCI adapter.

For an idea of video playback speed with overlay and a radeon 9250 pci card see this post.

http://wap.amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=36355&forum=33&start=20&viewmode=flat&order=0#680357

Quote:

Fairdinkem wrote: @Thread Is there a graphics card that I can put in the sam 460 that is supported by OS4.x with overlay?

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@Spectre660

So I could use a pci radeon 9250 graphics card, on board sata with a regular hard drive and optical dvd rom drive and everything is sweet.

So what is the down side of using on board sata because it sounds okay to me?

_________________
Amiga A1200T - TF1260 - R9200 - Indivision AGA MK3
Amiga A500 - PiStorm EMU68
Pegasos 2 G4 - AmigaOS 4.1 FE / MorphOS 3.16

@Fairdinkem

"the down side of using on board sata"

PIO mode uses a lot more CPU than DMA mode and PIO is a lot slower.
(IIRC, SAM460ex has SATA2 onboard, it could transfer up to 300MB/sec, but with PIO you get 10% or less, I imagine.)
With SATA1 card you get up to 150MB/sec with DMA and more than just one port.

"on board sata with a regular hard drive and optical dvd rom drive "
Without SATA card you can use only one SATA HDD and DVD only via USB adapter.


(again, copying SAM flex components to SAM460 would have given better than current results)

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?