Blizzard 603e (+)
Description
The
Blizzard 603e combines the PowerPC 603e (160, 200
and 240 MHz) and the MC68040 (or MC68060) on one
board. According to phase5 it can be fitted to a
desktop A1200, although a towered up A1200 is
recommended - this board gets hot - and a tower
case is required if you wish to attach a BVisionPPC
graphics card at a later date.
The B603e is shipped in two versions - with or
without a SCSI2 controller on the board. Note that
you cant update the SCSI controller at a later
date. Choose your board wisely because you have to
stick with the CPU combination as well (neither the
PPC nor the 68k processor can be upgraded at a
later date). Its two SIMM sockets can take up to
64MB of RAM each.
Attaching the BVision graphics board to the
connector provided on the B603e means that the
BVision should provide significantly faster graphic
performance than traditional Zorro-based graphic
cards. The BVision itself isn't yet available, but
our CVPPC page
should give an indication of performance.
Speed
We haven't done any Benchmarks yet, but with
specific software it's as fast as your Amiga 1200
can go. The raw speed of 603e 166 MHz is about 280
MIPS (about 120 times faster than the performance
of the original A1200). A better indication of
speed will be shown by benchmarks taken from
various appclications, which will be made available
here soon.
Overall
If you want your Amiga to go faster then this is
for you! The board is very valuable starting from
600 DM (230 UKĀ£ or 400 US$). Ask your dealer
for trade-in offers if you want to upgrade your old
accelerator.
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