This has probably been mentioned before, but after squinting at some Sam440 pics, I believe that it uses the SIL3114CT176 chip for SATA. This means SATA-150 speed, rather than SATA-300 (not that this is likely to make any difference, since harddrives are so slow anyway).

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

In this case the PCI bus is more of a bottle neck than the SATA stream...

So you're right in that it wouldn't make much of a difference, because even with 5 harddrives on a port replicator you're still limited to what you can output over normal PCI (even if it could be 66MHz it's still sharing that with the VGA chip)...

So we're waiting for a PPC440SPe version with x4, x4 and x8 PCIe in addition to the PCI port

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@Yo
Question for ACube/Hyperion: If I fit a Radeon 9250 PCI card to a Sam440ep (with built-in gfx-chip), will U-boot & OS4.1 allow me to use it?

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

Yes, you can use an external PCI gfx card with Sam. It will work with both UBoot and OS4.1

Before using a PCI card you need to take into account the following info:

- the onboard M9 is connect to a 66 Mhz PCI bus
- the PCI slot is 33 Mhz instead

- the onboard M9 chip as a 128 bit gfx ram bus
- most (if not all) of the 9250 PCI cards have a 64 bit gfx ram bus

Therefore the external PCI card will run on a slower bus and will have a slower gfx ram interface, but you'll have 128Mb or 256Mb ram available instead of the 64 Mb onboard.

My suggestion is to use the onboard M9, with a little fine tuning of video resolution and color deep you can use composting without problems with 64Mb.

_________________
Massimiliano Tretene, ACube Systems, Soft3

@Lecta

>There is no difference between backplates for Sam440ep and Sam44o-Flex boards.

Not perfect, but two holes in the backplate on a Sam440-Flex are way better than no backplate at all.

@m3x
Thanks for answer & warnings! I wonder if the Sam440-Flex will have a "dedicated" 66MHz PCI slot for the needed gfx-card?

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

Yes, Sam Flex has 1 PCI slot at 66Mhz and 2 PCI slot at 33Mhz.
Obviously I'll put gfx in the 66Mhz PCI slot.

@kyle

Which is the best PCI graphics card supported by OS4?

_________________
www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

@TheDaddy

The Radeon 9250 is the recommended base model.

Simon

_________________
Simon

Comments made by me on any public fora are not representative of, or on behalf of, any company I may have, or assumed by the reader to have, any association with.

Any comments are a personal opinion, and should be accepted as such.

@thread

Again. Please keep this thread strictly for questions to be posed TO ACube. If someone, like Rigo above, can answer your question, fine, however chatter WILL be deleted.

Thank you for your consideration.

_________________
¤¤ Official Hyperion Zealot ¤¤

(No, I didn't type that with a straight face.)

@olegil

Quote:

So we're waiting for a PPC440SPe version with x4, x4 and x8 PCIe in addition to the PCI port

That would be nice!

Acube: Are there any plans for such a motherboard? A more highend kind of thing with some (or a lot) of L2 cache, PCIe etc., but still a small embedded-like formfactor perhaps?

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

I have seen PCI risers with two or more sockets.
Would these work with the Sam?

_________________
If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're upside down.

A question from another thread:
Quote:

Is the Sam440's processor overclockable?

_________________

Why is minimig called "mini"? The size is actually "nano", is it not?

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

@Yo
Another question for ACube: Does Sam440 have any internal connectors for audio sockets (headphones and/or microphone) that you get on cases? The manual does not list any, except for a cryptic "Audio expansion port: J12".

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

I second your question about microphones ! I REALLY need one (recording sound). The spare Soundblaster I have doesn't seem to be compatible (5v)!
Is there any solution in order to let SAM record sound (from mic) ????

Last edited by lucaricossa on 02-Nov-2008 at 10:35 AM.

@thread

Just adding a few bits of info taken directly from Acube sources, in order to keep this official Acube thread up to date.

After a user stated that SAM440ep was discontinued:

January 26, 2010 - m3x quote:

Quote:

@hunk you're right, after 3 years, the Sam440ep mini-itx version is out of production, but there are still (few) boards available from resellers and directly from us the 600 mhz version. We can still produce it if we receive a bulk order of at least 30-50 boards. We're currently putting our resources producing Sam-flex, EyeMotion and the NAS.

After a user showed concern for Acube's future after X1000 puzzle:

January 27, 2010 - m3x quote:

Quote:

@amigauser Don't read too much into it, we're not leaving the amiga market, just fading out a product which was already out for 3 years. As we said at the Pianeta Amiga show in September, there will be eventually a new hardware from us later this year, but there are some conditions for this to happen, and the first one is: we need to sell a certain amount of Flex boards. For the backplate, it will be available around end March / beginning April this year (crossing fingers...)

Source posts #28 & #52

#6

Last edited by number6 on 10-Feb-2010 at 09:50 PM.

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@number6

thanks for the update

_________________
____________________________
c64-2sids, A1000, A1200T-060@50(finally working!),A4000-CSMKIII
! My Master Miggies- Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
mancave-ramblings
X1000 I BELIEVE

@number6

thanks for the update!

@thread

As reported here

Quote:

Sam blackplates finally available!

direct link to Acube announcement

#6

_________________
This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*