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EnigmA Amiga Run 1995 November
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EnigmA AMIGA RUN 02 (1995)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1995-11][Skylink CD].iso
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MB_28.txt
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1995-09-30
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Beginners Guide to Accelerators
By Peripheral
Last issue i covered the topics of Hard Drives etc, as promised heres my
follow up the accelerators. I will generally cover accelerators for AGA
machines but read on!.
THE BASICS
Firstly let me explain the basics to you. An accelerator is usually a
`card` which plugs in somewhere in your amiga, and gives you a speed
increase over your previous setup. For example a Amiga 500 runs at 7mhz
and does under a mip, whilst the A1200 does 14mhz and does about 1.2mips.
Ah yes but what is a mip?, well a mip stands for Million Instructions Per
Second. You should really look at the mip rating of a processor if you
want to compare. Like for instance a You may think a Intel DX2/66mhz is
more powerful than a 040 at 25mhz but there roughly the same. The 68040
chip used inside a Amiga 4000 is as powerful as a 486DX2 peecee. So if
your peecee m8`s says that `my machine 486dx2 is faster than your A4000,
he's talking shit. Note do you notice that the 486 runs at twice the
speed to achieve the same processor power?. An FPU is a Floating Point
Unit this does all the those hard maths calculations that slow your
Processor down and relieves some of the strain on it. A MMU is a Memory
Management Unit and allows you to do whizzy things such as virtual ram,
imagine having a 128meg ram!, unfortunately its rather slow and you need
a Hard Drive. Adding a accelerator will greatly improve your machine,
you can then play gloom at full speed, full screen without it slowing
down a bit!. Also your 3D rendering and access times will be shorter!,
Yipee!.
Ok Down to it!
There are many accelerators for The A1200 ranging from just a FPU add on
to 020`s and even 060`s!. The most basic accelerator you can get for the
A1200 is a FPU ram combination this gives a FPU that will speed up maths
operations and you can add extra ram so you can run more than one
application as once or load a really big picture into ram etc.
Unfortunately the FPU wont speed up your whole system only maths stuff
that supports it, so even if you`ve got a FPU, your games wont get faster
unless they support a FPU.
Next are the 020 processors you can get. These cards also offer extra
ram to be put in but are `clocked doubled` which means they run at twice
the speed of a normal CPU. The 020 cards run at 28mhz so this doubles
your CPU speed by two if you`ve got a A1200. Next up are the 030 cards,
now things start to get complicated. They come in different speeds all
the way up to 50mhz, the 50mhz 030 does 10-12mips roughly the same as
486sx CPU, you can also purchase a FPU to go with the 030 cards, some of
them even include a SCSI-II interface card, so you can use SCSI devices
etc. the Price for a 030/50Mhz is about 200 pounds (UK). You can also
add up to 128meg ram on board. If you`ve got the money i recommend you
go for the 030/50mhz cards or 40mhz versions. These make your A1200
faster than a A4000/030. They also offer great flexibility. Note when
purchasing make sure the CPU is not `Clock Doubled` cause this may cause
overheating problems. You can also purchase 030 cards for all other
amigas including a500`s
040 AND THE 060 NOW YOUR TALKING POWER
Now are the next range of the Motorola Series of CPU`S the 68040 and the
68060. The 040 is the same CPU as the one in the A4000T, it performs
20mips at 25mhz roughly. A1200 040`s have only now been possible because
of a new version of the 040 with only uses 3.3v and much cooler to run
and doesn't overheat that quickly. By getting on of these your Amiga
will run like a Horse who`s been poked in the ass with a red hot pole.
You can run many programs at once without your Amiga slowing down too
much and do some serious graphic work. the A1200/040 has the same
features as the 030 cards for the A1200, including SCSI-II interface etc
expect to pay about 400 quid for one.
The 68060 is the last in the 68000 Series of CPU`s by Motorola and this
CPU is like having a `Galaxy Class StarShip` shoved up you backside doing
warp 9.9. The CPU offers 100mips at 50mz (Peak Performance) But you`ll
get about 82mips i think out of it. The CyberStorm Board for big box
amigas is excellent if you`ve got a bigBox then get this! It has so many
features to list!. You can get a 1200/60 CPU upgrade and will cost you
about 600 pounds for the A1200 and about 700-800 pounds for bigboxes.
This CPU outdoes a pentium 100 at 50mhz, new version are due to come soon
at 66mhz and 90mhz i think!. This is a pentium killer!.
Note: To achieve good performance out of your CPU Accelerator you should
buy at least 2meg Fast Ram, this increase your speed even more,
Especially IDE based amigas such as the a1200, if you can afford 2meg
then get 1meg but if your not gonna buy extra ram, then you`ll only be
using your CPU at a lower efficiency.
Anyway thats all for this time I'll be back, maybe next issue with
something else. if you have any comments send em into MiGGYBYTE so i can
read em. Chow!
END
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