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- Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet
- From: cld@wucs1.wustl.edu (Christopher L. Davis)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Subject: REVIEW: Fusion Forty accelerator for Amiga 2000
- Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
- Date: 27 Apr 1993 02:18:03 GMT
- Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
- Lines: 332
- Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
- Distribution: world
- Message-ID: <1ri54r$iin@menudo.uh.edu>
- Reply-To: cld@wucs1.wustl.edu (Christopher L. Davis)
- NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
- Keywords: hardware, A2000, accelerator, 68040, commercial
-
-
- PRODUCT NAME
-
- Fusion Forty accelerator
-
-
- BRIEF DESCRIPTION
-
- The Fusion Forty (abbreviated as "F40" in this review) is a 68040
- accelerator card for the Amiga 2000. It connects via the processor slot and
- may be populated with 4, 8, 16, 20, or 32 MB of 80ns (or faster) 32-bit
- RAM. My board has "Plug and Go" ROMs version 2.1.
-
-
- AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION
-
- Name: RCS Management
- Address: 120 McGill Street
- Montreal, Quebec
- H2Y 2E5 Canada
-
- Telephone: (514) 871-4924
- FAX: (514) 871-4926
- BBS: (514) 871-9881
-
-
- LIST PRICE
-
- $1170 (US) with no 32-bit RAM, when purchased directly from RCS.
- Street price: unknown. I got mine during a special for Amiga User Groups
- and paid $995 for the board and $175 for 4 MB RAM. At the time, other 68040
- boards were selling for $2000 or more.
-
-
- SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
-
- HARDWARE
-
- An Amiga 2000. I recommend a hard drive.
-
- SOFTWARE
-
- Works under AmigaDOS 1.3 and higher. If you have AmigaDOS
- 2.1, all you need is the CPU command in the C: directory and
- LIBS:68040.library. For lower AmigaDOS versions, additional
- software is provided on the F40 install disk (SetPatch,
- SetFF, FFCache). I did not try the board under AmigaDOS
- 1.3, but the board does support it.
-
-
- COPY PROTECTION
-
- None.
-
-
- MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
-
- Amiga 2000 (ECS -- see below)
- IVS Trumpcard Pro SCSI Disk controller
- Supra 2000 Memory Card with 4 MB 16 bit Fast Ram
- DKB MegaChip 2000 (2 Meg Chip Ram) and Super Denise
- AmigaDOS 2.04
- Fusion Forty Accelerator with 4 MB of 32-bit Fast RAM
-
-
- REVIEW
-
- The F40 is a 28 MHz 68040 accelerator board for the Amiga 2000.
- (The manual says 25MHz, but all my system measurement software says the
- processor is overclocked to 28 MHz.) It has a built in math coprocessor
- (FPU) and Memory Management Unit (MMU). And in case you want to go back to
- your 68000, there is a hardware switch on the back plate to disable the
- 040. This change should NEVER be made while the machine is running.
-
- The F40 is cleanly designed, with no traces or pins wired together.
- There are a couple of surface-mounted chips, but the rest are socketed. The
- board is 6-layer with separate ground and power planes. There are 3
- expansion connectors on the board for future use.
-
- Before I got the F40, I hadn't really had much experience with
- hardware installation, but the board was quick and easy to install. Software
- installation was handled via Commodore's Installer program... very nice and
- easy to work with.
-
- The first thing I noticed was that everything was so quick. Things
- just jumped out onto the screen. Next, I set all the caches for maximum
- performance. I wanted to get the most out of the hardware. Some software
- broke because of this; I cover this topic in more depth in the BUGS section,
- below.
-
- Of course, one of the biggest benefits of the processor upgrade was
- in multitasking. I would experience pauses with my old 68000 while doing the
- most mundane things. With the F40, I have no such problems. I have a
- number of tasks running simultaneously with no discernible pauses and no
- noticeable slowdown. I have downloaded files at high speeds while compiling,
- working with a Digi-Paint picture, or processing JPEG graphics with
- HamLabPlus (a great program -- shameless plug for Ed Hamway).
-
- Just how fast is the board? I did some benchmarking with a
- pre-release version of AIBB 6.0 and with SysInfo. I chose AIBB because I
- believe the suite of tests is a pretty good cross-section of the computing we
- all do. It is composed of integer and floating point math, and some
- graphics tests, including a piece of a rudimentary raytracing algorithm.
- During the tests, I chose the A4000/040 as my base machine. All caches were
- active, and advanced code generation options were activated where
- applicable. Also, FPUs were utilized where they existed. The following
- table shows the results in the form of percentages faster or slower than the
- A4000/040. For example, a rating of 1.26 means "26% faster than an
- A4000/040," and a rating of 0.63 means "37% slower than an A4000/040."
-
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Tests | A4000-40 | A2000-F40 | A600 | A1200 | A3000-25 |
- | BASE | | | | |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- EmuTest | 1.00 | 1.26 | 0.06 | 0.12 | 0.31 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- InstTest | 1.00 | 1.59 | 0.10 | 0.17 | 0.54 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- EllipseTest| 1.00 | 0.61 | 0.18 | 0.44 | 0.43 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- WritePixel | 1.00 | 0.43 | 0.07 | 0.19 | 0.23 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- LineTest | 1.00 | 0.62 | 0.53 | 0.92 | 0.58 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Matrix | 1.00 | 1.47 | 0.06 | 0.23 | 0.63 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sieve | 1.00 | 1.74 | 0.09 | 0.37 | 0.79 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- IMath | 1.00 | 1.13 | 0.02 | 0.21 | 0.43 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Dhrystone | 1.00 | 1.13 | 0.05 | 0.11 | 0.29 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- MemTest | 1.00 | 2.43 | 0.29 | 0.79 | 1.88 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sort | 1.00 | 1.20 | 0.05 | 0.14 | 0.36 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- TGTTest | 1.00 | 0.72 | 0.26 | 0.56 | 0.51 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Savage | 1.00 | 1.16 | <0.01 | 0.01 | 1.25 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Flops | 1.00 | 1.13 | <0.01 | <0.01 | 0.17 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- FMath | 1.00 | 1.12 | <0.01 | <0.01 | 0.11 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- TranTest | 1.00 | 1.53 | <0.01 | 0.02 | 0.95 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- FMatrix | 1.00 | 1.73 | 0.05 | 0.12 | 0.37 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- FTrace | 1.00 | 1.21 | <0.01 | 0.02 | 0.98 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- BeachBall | 1.00 | 0.95 | <0.01 | 0.02 | 0.32 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- CplxTest | 1.00 | 1.18 | 0.04 | 0.07 | 0.25 |
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Descriptions of the tests can be found by downloading AIBB version
- 6.00 when it is available. The descriptions and pseudo-code examples of the
- test can be found in the Documentation directory of the AIBB 6.0 archive.
-
- The F40 shows admirable benchmarks in all categories except the
- graphically oriented ones. I attribute this to the higher bandwidth and
- advanced capabilities of the AGA chipset. I can not figure out why the
- 3000-25 outscored both the 4000-40 and the F40 in the savage test: perhaps
- some advantage to the 030-882 combination?
-
- From the data collected above, the F40 equipped A2000 seems to
- exceed the performance of the A4000-40 in non-graphics tests by 12 to 143
- percent.
-
- The fact that the F40 and the A3000 scored better on the memory test
- is not a surprise, considering that I have heard of some type of problem in
- the 4000 memory system. I don't know the exact nature of the problem, but
- it was discussed here on the net a while back if I remember correctly.
-
- Nic Wilson's SysInfo 3.11 agrees with the Dhrystone measurement
- above, with a 11% faster F40 compared to AIBB's 12%. It also rates it at
- approximately 21+ MIPS and 5+ MFLOPS. Take that rating (MIPS/MFLOPS) for
- what it is worth. ;)
-
- To test C compilation speed, I wanted results that could be utilized
- by the largest group of possible people interested. I decided to compile
- something that came on the SAS C 6.2 distribution (6.0 with 6.2 patch
- applied). I chose the "cback" example. I tested the compile by double
- clicking the Build icon for cback and stop-watching the compile. It
- actually creates two files, cback and schelp. I tested with my 68000, my
- F40 with caches and copyback off, and with caches and copyback on. Here are
- the results.
-
- 68000, plain: 137 seconds
- 68040, caches off: 26 seconds
- 68040, caches on: 18 seconds
-
- I enjoy video and have done some playing around with 3D Rendering,
- so I wanted to do a rendering benchmark. Again, like compiling, I wanted to
- do something that others could reproduce. I have Caligari 2 and chose to
- load an object that came with the package. I chose gobot.obj. Once the
- object is loaded, I clicked the render button. I ran it with the data cache
- and copyback, and then without any caches. I don't even think Caligari 2
- supports just using the 68000; and in any case, I don't believe I have the
- patience to wait as long as I think it would take. Here are the results:
-
- without copyback and data cache: 87 seconds
- with copyback and data cache: 43 seconds
-
- This is by no means conclusive but provides you with some solid numbers that
- you can compare to your own system.
-
- For you Video Toaster users, the F40 is fully compatible, and I hear
- they are in regular use at NewTek (this was unconfirmed by NewTek -- have you
- tried reaching them for the last week or so?). According to Micro Times,
- the F40 was the accelerator used in the Amiga 2000's that produced the
- effects for Babylon 5. Their setup consisted of a dozen 2000's (8 of which
- did rendering) with F40s and 32 Meg of RAM. They were networked by a Novell
- network and used Oxxi's netware package for the Amiga.
-
-
- DOCUMENTATION
-
- A small 30 page manual is provided covering the F40 and its
- installation (hardware, software, and new RAM). It also covers enabling and
- disabling the 040 and how to use the cache controlling software. There are
- sections in the manual that deal with hardware and software considerations,
- how the F40 works, a Question/Answer section (short), and technical
- specifications.
-
- LIKES:
-
- Speed!!! What a screamer.
- Vendor -- See vendor section.
- Reliability -- Rock SOLID for over a year.
-
- DISLIKES
-
- One only really that I just discovered. I put in the new Plug and
- Go ROMS recently. They fixed a minor annoyance that called for a double
- boot at power up time. When I went to pry the ROMs out of the sockets, I
- found out that the sockets did not have the usual hard plastic bottoms.
- There was a mylar-like film running between the pin sockets (see diagram
- below):
-
- ____________<-Mylar ooooooooooooooo
- Side | |<-Pin Mylar here Top View
- View | | Sockets--->ooooooooooooooo
-
-
- Forget using the old screw driver pry up for this task. I had a chip puller
- handy for Fat Agnus chips, and it happened to fit just fine... big sigh of
- relief. Putting the new chips in was challenging, but this fumble-fingered
- hardware numbskull managed, so it wasn't too bad.
-
- Suggestions for the board: on-board SCSI (preferably SCSI-II) would
- be a welcome addition. See the section at the end of the review about other
- coming attractions.
-
-
- COMPARISON WITH OTHER PRODUCTS
-
- I have used no other 040 accelerators, but I would heartily
- recommend this product, without a shade of hesitancy, based on the
- reliability of my current card and the vendor's excellent attitude toward
- customer satisfaction (see vendor).
-
-
- BUGS
-
- I experienced a few bugs on my older ROM version. It had the
- annoying property of having to be double booted at power-up time (now fixed
- with Plug and Go). Quarterback 5.0 would hang if copyback was on. Talking
- to CCS/New Horizons provided a fix, and the bug became less frequent, but
- Plug and Go has corrected the problem totally. My SAS 6.2 upgrade version of
- CPR caused a similar type of problem that Quarterback did, and the Plug and
- Go ROMS fixed that problem, too. There may be some few bugs left (I have
- read articles on the net about problems with Emplant), but RCS works quite
- hard to maintain maximum compatibility. They just recently set up an upgrade
- BBS (see the phone number in the AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION section, above),
- so we can download new software as it becomes available.
-
-
- VENDOR SUPPORT
-
- Superlative. This is one area you can't fault RCS on. At least I
- can't. I have called and talked with Sales and Technical Support ("TS") a
- number of times. I have talked to the same people for the last year or
- longer. TS is always helpful, and actively asks what types of things I am
- doing. Serge (TS) is knowledgable and quite forthcoming with information,
- so much so that it is hard to get all my questions in sometimes. Rischi
- (Sales) is quite helpful and is free with information and careful not to
- bad-mouth his competition.
-
- RCS seems very driven to satisfy the customer, and I am quite
- satisfied with their product and their support.
-
-
- WARRANTY
-
- One year, parts and labor.
-
- CONCLUSION
-
- The F40 is an excellent product. The quality of the board and the
- responsiveness of RCS combine into a winning solution. Two thumbs up here.
-
-
- COMING ATTRACTIONS
-
- I have specs on their new 33 MHz version board. The two things that
- have changed radically are:
-
- 1.) 2.0 AmigaDOS or Higher is required (no more 1.3).
- 2.) 256 Meg of RAM on the board. Another model may only support
- up to 128 Meg on the board.
-
- There was word of a Chip RAM accelerator, but nothing has come of it
- yet. It has apparently been shelved for now, but it is not dead. The new
- version of the board is being given top priority. They also have a
- networking card that currently works with the existing F40.
-
- They also promise some new and exciting stuff (that I wish I knew
- more about) soon, like an extremely cost-effective 24-bit graphics card that
- plugs into the F40.
-
-
- COPYRIGHT NOTICE
-
- This article is in the Public Domain.
-
- ---
-
- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
- Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu
- Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu
- Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu
-