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»At the Neuss show, Elbox presented a PCI interface for the A1200. In my opinion this was the biggest surprise at the show, but many people didn't recognize its importance. I investigated a bit and got some details (but some things listed below are just copied from the press release of Elbox):
Number of PCI slots: | 4 | |
Speed between the slots: | up to 132 MB/sec. | |
Speed between PCI slot and the rest of the Amiga: | 22 MB/sec. Comparison: CV/PPC to Cyberstorm PPC bus is 18 MB/sec. |
The Voodoo 3 alone is likely to have a 10 times higher fill rate of a Permedia 2, if not even more. And the fill rate is the current "bottle neck" for Amiga-3D hardware...this is a revolution... and it could be even better... if drivers for PCI boards are developed NOW, future PCI systems like G3 turbo boards or the BoXer will have the benefit of this.
Steffen Haeuser <magicsn@birdland.es.bawue.de>«
Conclusion:
This sounds good, but keep in mind that no Amiga-PCI project has ever been realized. I expect that this will also be true for the Elbox development.
I also ask myself: what is the use of another project for the ageing Amiga hardware? Instead of buying a G3 add-on and the PCI-bridge (if both do get released), many users might think twice, and wait to buy a brand new computer to run the AmigaNG operating system or wait to buy the AmigaOne«, which is promised for late this year.