Fresh Fish 9/FreshFishVol9-CD2.bin/bbs/reviews/accelerators.lha/accelerators/WarpEngine4040

Internet Message Format | 1994-09-05 | 15.9 KB

Path: news.uh.edu!barrett
From: [e-mail] (John Gager)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: WarpEngine 4040 accelerator for A3000T/A4000
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Date: 15 Jun 1994 20:03:07 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 367
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2tnmpr$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (John Gager)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: hardware, accelerator, 68040, A3000T, A4000, commercial
Originator: [e-mail]


PRODUCT NAME

    WarpEngine 4040

    [MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review was updated on June 18 and June 21,
    1994.  Search for the text "[UPDATE:" to find updated information.
    -Dan]


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    A 40 MHz 68040 accelerator for the Amiga 4000 and 3000T (3000 soon).
Includes memory expansion capabilities (up to 128MB) and a SCSI-II FAST hard
drive controller.

    Other models include the WarpEngine 4033 and WarpEngine 4028 which
are 33 and 28 MHz versions of the same board, respectively.


COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        MacroSystem Development
    Address:    24282 Lynwood, Suite 201
            Novi, Michigan 48374
            USA

    Telephone:      [phone]
    FAX:            [phone]

    Email:        [e-mail]

    Support BBS:    CryoCafe BBS
            [phone]
            Accessible on Telnet to address 199.2.115.2 Port 42

    Mailing list:    There is also a mailing list available for
             WarpEngine support. To subscribe to the list,
             send mail to [e-mail]
            with "subscribe warped" in the BODY of the
            message.


LIST PRICE

    WarpEngine 4028:  $ 899.95 (US)
    WarpEngine 4033:  $1599.95 (US)
    WarpEngine 4040:  $1899.95 (US)

    I paid $1469 (US) for the WarpEngine 4040 via mail order.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        Amiga 3000T, 4000, or 4000T.

        (Note: When revision 2 of the board becomes available, it
        will work also with the Amiga 3000.)

        [UPDATE:  I received a report from Barry Kryshka
        ([e-mail]), saying that the WarpEngine
        4040 is "incompatible with Quantum 210 and 425 megabyte hard
        drives."  The symptoms are "random read/write errors" and
        the "drive popping up one day, and not showing at all the
        next time."  Barry says that a Macrosystems technical
        support person has confirmed that there is an
        incompatibility.  The incompatibility is not mentioned in
        the manual.  - Dan]


    SOFTWARE

        None.


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    Amiga 4000, 16MB Fast RAM (installed on the WarpEngine), 2MB Chip RAM
    120 MB Internal Seagate IDE Drive
    1.3 GB Toshiba MK-538 Hard Drive (external SCSI-II)
    NEC 3xi CDROM Drive              (external SCSI-II)
    Tandberg 3600 Tape Drive         (external SCSI)
    SyQuest-270 Removable Cartridge  (external SCSI)
    NEC 3D MultiSync monitor
    Kickstart 39.109 (3.0), Workbench 40.35 (3.1)
        (I obtained Workbench 3.1 as a registered developer.)


INSTALLATION

    [MODERATOR'S NOTE:  If you are not comfortable opening up your
    Amiga, then you should have the work done by an authorized Amiga
    service center.  Opening your Amiga yourself may void your warranty,
    and careless work may even damage the machine.  - Dan]

    Installation is not terribly difficult, but it is not for the novice.
To get maximum performance, you need to remove the Fast RAM SIMMs from the
4000's motherboard and install them on the WarpEngine.  This requires a good
knowledge of anti-static techniques, or else you may destroy the RAM.  Next,
you have to set a few jumpers on the WarpEngine to specify the type and size
of SIMMs you are using, whether or not you need to add a wait state for
slower memory, and the SCSI configuration.  These jumpers are well
documented in the manual.  Finally, you have to remove the A3640 or 68030
processor board from the 4000 and install the WarpEngine in its place.  The
WarpEngine is mounted to the motherboard using snap-in plastic standoffs, so
it's just a matter of aligning the board and connector, then snapping it in
place.  If you get nervous just taking the cover off your 4000, then I would
suggest you have the board installed by a qualified technician.

    The WarpEngine comes with SCSI hard drive partitioning software,
SCSI device drivers, and a utility to remap the Kickstart ROM into the
WarpEngine's local bus memory.

REVIEW

    The main word for this board that portrays my feelings is:  WOW!!  If
you want to breathe new life into your 4000, then this board is for you.
What makes the WarpEngine so special?


MEMORY

    First, the 4000 has always been crippled by its memory design,
especially with CBM's A3640 processor board.  Not only was you limited in
the amount of Fast RAM could be installed (16MB), but its memory access speed
is actually slower than that of the A3000 and 1200!  Almost half the speed,
to be exact.  But with your SIMMs installed on the WarpEngine, you will
never be embarrassed again.  As you can see from the MemTest benchmark below,
the WarpEngine's access to Fast memory is four times faster than a normal
4000's, and I'm using 1 wait state because of my 70ns SIMMs!

    What does this mean for you?  The speed of a computer is more than
raw processing speed.  An efficient memory design can make a big difference
in applications such as image processing, 3D rendering, and others in which
data in memory needs to be moved quickly.  Although the WarpEngine's 40 MHz
processor provides a raw 1.6 times increase in speed, you may find your 4000
up to 3 times faster with certain applications!

    The WarpEngine also provides the capability of adding up to 128 MB
RAM using standard 32MB 72-pin SIMMs. Not only that, but the SIMMs can be
mixed with different sizes. In other words, if you had 3 4MB SIMMs, you
could add a 32MB SIMM for a total of 44MB.  So if you need to scan 24-bit,
300 DPI pictures directly into memory, the capability is there.  All you have
to provide is the checking account large enough to pay for the memory. :-)


40 MHz 68040

    Next is the 40 MHz 68040 processor. Even if you previously had the
A3640 card in your 4000, you will notice a very nice speed increase in the
overall operation of your Amiga.  Windows snap up quickly, your applications
run smoothly and quickly, and your 4000 feels like a different computer.  For
those of you with a 68EC030 CPU in your 4000, then the WarpEngine will be a
very pleasant surprise!  Not only will your Amiga be considerably faster, but
also you will finally have an MMU for niceties like virtual memory (GigaMem).


SCSI-II FAST Controller

    No more lousy IDE!!!  The WarpEngine provides a SCSI-I/SCSI-II FAST
DMA controller using the NCR-53C710 controller chip. The controller is a
true DMA controller and transfers data directly into the WarpEngine's fast
local memory and the Amiga's address space.  What this means is that not only
do you have a very fast controller, but also the load on the 68040 processor
is minimal.  And unlike CBM's or DKB's 4091 controller, the WarpEngine does
not require the revision -11 SuperBuster chip.  It will work just fine with
your current buster or motherboard.

    Unfortunately, I do not have a very fast SCSI-II hard drive to put
this controller really to the test.  However, people who have used the
WarpEngine with a screaming drive like the Seagate Barracuda report a
transfer rate of over 8MB/sec!  John Chang of Scala reports their animation
player that pulls frames directly from the Barracuda can play 768x480,
64-color animations at over 20 frames per second.  Considering the time it
takes to process and display a frame, this is quite impressive.

    The WarpEngine also provides various options for the SCSI controller
using jumpers. For instance, you can set the delay to allow slower drives to
power up before being scanned, enable Synchronous and FAST Synchronous
transfers, and disable the ROM autoboot.

    Since I was using the A4091 before the WarpEngine, I was wondering
what I might have to go through to get my current SCSI drives to work. I was
pleasantly surprised to find that after I installed my WarpEngine and turned
on the computer, the SCSI drive booted up as if nothing had changed at all!
So a big thanks goes to MacroSystem Development for conforming to CBM's
standards!


BENCHMARKS

    Here are the AIBB 6.5 results for the WarpEngine. The AIBB results
have been edited for brevity, and only the comparisons to a standard 4000
are shown.  Both were set for 68020 code and 68040 math. The base system was
the normal 4000.

    These tests were done with the WarpEngine set for 1 wait state since
I only had 70 ns SIMMs, and it crashes quite a bit if I try to run it with 0
wait states.  But with 0 wait states, the MemTest has a rating of 4.6 with a
transfer speed of over 19 MBytes/second.

            WarpEngine    A4000/040-25 MHz
    EmuTest            1.88               1.00
    Writepixel         1.47               1.00
    Sieve              2.77               1.00
    Dhrystone          1.60               1.00
    Sort               1.76               1.00
    EllipseTest        1.12               1.00
    Matrix             2.22               1.00
    IMath              1.61               1.00
    Memtest            4.02 (WOW!)        1.00
    TGTest             1.14               1.00
    LineTest           1.02               1.00
    Savage             1.61               1.00
    FMath              1.62               1.00
    FMatrix            2.72               1.00
    BeachBall          1.64               1.00
    InstTest           2.41               1.00
    Flops              1.61               1.00
    TranTest           2.22               1.00
    FTrace             1.62               1.00
    CplxTest           1.61               1.00

    Note: You may notice that the EllipseTest, TGTest, and LineTest are
          not much faster than a normal 4000. That is because these tests
          depend more on the speed of the blitter and Chip RAM than on
          the WarpEngine.

    Here are the DiskSpeed 4.2 speed ratings for a Seagate Barracuda
drive downloaded from the CryoCafe BBS. I have no reason to believe that
these figures have been tampered with in any way because other users of the
Warp Engine and Barracuda have reported transfer rates of over 8MB/sec.

    MKSoft DiskSpeed 4.2  Copyright ) 1989-92 MKSoft Development
    ------------------------------------------------------------
    CPU: 68040  AmigaOS Version: 39.106  Normal Video DMA
    Device:  sdh2:    Buffers: 50

    CPU Speed Rating: 4976

    Testing directory manipulation speed.
    File Create:           79 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 70%
    File Open:            241 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 28%
    Directory Scan:       490 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 45%
    File Delete:          358 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 27%

    Seek/Read:           2130 seeks/sec  |  CPU Available: 7%

    Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
    Create file:        60208 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 85%
    Write to file:      60329 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 86%
    Read from file:    260447 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 52%

    (4096 & 32768 Buffer readings skipped for brevity)

    Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
    Create file:      1971736 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 89%
    Write to file:    3899392 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 95%
    Read from file:   8323072 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 91%

    Average CPU Available: 69%  |  CPU Availability index: 3433


DOCUMENTATION

    The documentation for the WarpEngine is a small, spiral-bound book.
It has a very nice overview of the accelerator and its special features
over a normal 4000's.

    Although I didn't read everything in the manual during installation,
I went back to read the complete installation procedure for this review.
Based on what I read, I think that a person who has installed Amiga boards,
hard drives, or other internal expansions to the 4000 shouldn't have too
much trouble installing the WarpEngine.  The installation procedure is clear
and step-by-step.


LIKES

    I think you know how much I like the WarpEngine. It's a very fine
accelerator that also corrects the shortcomings in the original 4000 design
such as the memory access and lack of a SCSI controller. One very nice thing
about the board is that if you purchase the 28 MHz model, you can easily
upgrade it to the full 40 MHz version just by changing the processor and
plug-in oscillator.  So when 68040-40 chip prices start to drop, you can turn
that WarpEngine 4028 into a real screamer.

    [UPDATE: As of June 21, 1994, the WarpEngine is not user-upgradable
    to a faster processor.  However, MacroSystems will perform the
    upgrade for you.  Contact them for details.  In the future, the
    WarpEngine may be user-upgradable.  - Dan]


DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

    Not much to dislike, but there are always a couple of problems. I've
always felt that the fan in the 4000's power supply was not very robust.
Adding the WarpEngine confirmed my suspicions.  Although the accelerator
came with a small fan for the CPU, those SIMMs generate a lot of heat.
After the WarpEngine was installed, my 4000 started crashing at random
intervals, but only after my computer was on over 1/2 hour or so.  A clear
sign of overheating.  To try and find out what was overheating, I ran
Microbotic's memory testing program MBRTest-2, and it didn't take very long
for it to locate the problem.  To help with the inadequate airflow in the
4000, I installed a small fan directly over the SIMMs.  Nothing was
mentioned in the manual about possible heat problems or solutions, so I
think it should be mentioned here and included in their troubleshooting
chart.

    Another thing is that if you are a developer, or have been in the
past, there is a good chance you were using the A3640's MapRom feature to
boot 3.1 Kickstart.  No such capability exists for the WarpEngine, and every
other Kickstart boot utility I tried failed to work.  So for right now I'm
stuck with the old 39.106 ROM Kickstart.  Bet you feel sorry for me, eh?
But Bill Coldwell of Cryogenic Software is working on a software Maprom
feature and will provide it to certified developers.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

    The only other product that I'm aware of that is in competition with
the WarpEngine is GVP's G-Force 40.  Since I've never seen the G-Force, I
really can't make many comparisons.  But a couple of things I do know about
the G-Force 40 made me choose the WarpEngine instead.  The G-Force 40 DOES
NOT include a SCSI controller, it is an option.  And GVP has always made
their board designs so you had to purchase their memory, at their prices.  I
wanted the option of being able to purchase 16MB SIMMs at the best prices I
could get.


BUGS

    None noted, but I haven't used the software that came on the disk
very much.  The ROM SCSI device driver, warpdrive.device, seems to be
bug-free and works very well with my current drives.


VENDOR SUPPORT

    I did call MacroSystem Development to find out whether or not the
WarpEngine had a Maprom feature, and they were courteous and informative.
Although they weren't able to provide a solution, at least they answered the
phone.

    Bill Coldwell also provides limited support on the CryoCafe BBS.  Be
nice to him:  he doesn't get paid to support the product.


WARRANTY

    The WarpEngines have a two year warranty covering manufacturing
defects.


CONCLUSIONS

    All in all, I've very happy with my purchase of the WarpEngine.  It
has made my 4000 the computer it should have been from the beginning, but CBM
was more interested in saving a buck.  So I give the Warp Engine "two thumbs
up" and a rating of 5 stars out of 5.


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    Copyright 1994 by John Gager. All rights reserved.
    This review is freely distributable.


CONTACT

    If you have any comments, flames (be nice!), or need further
    information, you can contact me via Email on several systems:

    Internet:   [e-mail]
    CompuServe: 71336,624
    Genie:      J.GAGER


---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Send reviews to:    [e-mail]
   Request information:    [e-mail]
   Moderator mail:    [e-mail]
   Anonymous ftp site:  math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews