Sam Flex questions..

I'm upgrading from my 667mhz Sam440ep. :)

1. How much faster is the 733mhz sam with its overclocked ram controller, than the 667mhz sam? to be specific, how does OWB compare? is the speed increase noticeable?

2. does the PCI Radeon support using 1920x1080x32 screen DVI resolutions? I like 1920x1080x16, but it would be cool to be able to use Netsurf in the colour depth it likes best..

3. Does it have a blackplate at the moment? Or is it in the same boat as the sam440ep?

@jahc

1) It is 10-12 Percent faster

2)Yes ,but the bootime is much longer

3)I don?t know that

@jahc
No backplate AFAIK.

@ChrisH
There are actually NO BACKPLATE for Sam440ep nor Sam440Flex ...

A friend did develop artisanal backplates for Sam440EP.
They are also compatible and I use one of them on my Sam440Flex 800Mhz ;)

http://sharynn.free.fr/021.jpg

@freddix
One wonder's how your friend can make Sam a backplate so quickly, but ACube still has not after X months...

He could make some money selling them!

@freddix

Hehe, that looks like a piece of FR4 (PCB). It won't get you pass an EMC test, but at least you won't touch the internal electronics when trying to insert a headphone.

@ChrisH
He sell them 20?/unit
and if he get more than 10 units (global) to be bought, the price can be lowered to 15?/unit.
Don't forget that you must add the price for sending the product from France to your country.

PS : If some people are interested in this, send me an e-mail ;)

EDIT : The price mentionned is the real "cost" price.

Regards,
Fred

@jahc

No backplate ... yet.

The 733Mhz Flex is has quiet the same speed than the 667er. I currently use the 733Mhz Flex and had the 667er before. I changed because the 667er had some hardware bugs so my dealer took the 667back and i bought the 773er. The speed is quiet the same.
I think you shouldnt change your sys. The SAM440 is a quiet nice hardware. Looks much better than the flex and the M9 Radeon with 64MB is enough for OS 4.1 any time.

@Duderino
Personnaly, I think that Sam440Ep is enough for user.
The Sam440Flex is good for 3D developers.
Of course, it's a personal point of view, nothing based on scientist :p

@ChrisH

Anyone can make a single backplate out of an old jam tin with a pair of scissors. If ACube had to make a couple of thousand, they would have to pay for tooling manufacture and that costs serious money.

@Duderino

Thanks for the feedback. So I guess I'm upgrading mostly for the extra RAM and gfx RAM.

512mb ram and 64mb gfx ram is not enough for me. I run out of RAM with all my apps open, many browser tabs, many source code tabs open, many screens, all my internet apps, music etc. It sucks when I try to compile when I (seemingly) only have about 20mb free, and the system goes super slow using virtual ram when it runs out of actual RAM. Music stutters, mouse pointer goes stuttery while GCC goes hard, apps dont respond well.. GCC is pretty intensive! It's better than just crashing, but still, I want better performance when I've got all my crap going at once! You realise OWB takes about 10-20mb per tab (or so it seems). I've got 15 tabs open on the PC here. I cant do that on my Amiga when I've got all my gear up.

I had to disable compositing on my screens, and I like compositing. I'm using 1920x1080 screens here..

My WookieChat compiles can take around a minute. If I can shave 10 seconds off that, that'll be a tiny bonus for me too.

It's been a cool Amiga for me. but it's time to upgrade to the best available hardware!

Just out of curiosity, what apps do you have running at all times? And what screen resolution do you use? I'm sure 512mb is fine for most people.. but not for my own usage! It was fine on the AmigaOneXE for 4 years.. but I outgrew it.

EDIT: Oh, also, I'm not fond of the built in Sam440ep audio. Sounds fine, but I want something better for my music. i loved the Audigy 2 ZS I had in my A1. I might get something high end for my Flex. Also it'd be good to have the option of a WiFi card too. I dont want to be limited to one or the other.

@jahc

This speed test shows the 800Mhz flex is around 23% faster than the 667mhz sam..

http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/ ... =ASC&type=&mode=0&start=0

Interesting. :)

@jahc
I just received a Sam-flex and can confirm that there was no backplate

@jahc

Quote:

Join the club, try not to onsell your 667Mhz ok? lol Mine is quite happy in an antistatic bag in it it's original box...

I am wishing a new model surfaces soon... hop hop...

I'm working full day Saturdays and the odd Sunday now that the Stadium has started... I have money to burn!

Wheee!

p.s. I did consider plugging in that sound card but haven't got around to it... seems I have little time to do those sorts of things and just use the flex for daily things... no tinkering... then I started another fresh game of Mass Effect on Insanity etc to get ready for Mass Effect 2 release... Heh

ONE day I'll get back to compiling and actually learning to code...

@Slayer

Nah man, this is paying for my new Sam! It's going on trademe for $1000 nzd start. :)

@tonyw
I know ACube's job is more difficult, but it's not THAT much more difficult IMHO. I was just wondering what was holding them up....

@jahc Quote:
I am managing fine with 1280x1024 screens, and compositing disabled on all screens EXCEPT Workbench (which is the only screen that compositing is useful for IMHO). I did have 32-bit screens, but I could occasionally run out of video ram, so I switched to 16-bit screens, and to be honest I can't tell the difference normally.

I always thought that I was a "screens freak", with one screen per type of app. e.g. Internet browser, Email, IRC & text editor (for code). Plus separate 32-bit screen(s) for photo viewers & editors. But TuneNet runs on the Workbench screen.

Normally I have tons of RAM free, but after running OS4 for many hours (without reboot) I do seem to find that I have run out of RAM. Something seems to leak memory, but I haven't tracked down what yet. Could be the OpenGL screen savers I use (this is my current top suspect), could be OWB, could be TuneNet, hopefully not OS4 itself. Wish everything used resource tracking, so OS4 would free the memory when it closed....

@jahc
I have both a Sam440ep and a Sam440ep-flex here. The problem with the Sam440ep is that there is a bandwidth limitation on the graphics hardware which is built-in to the motherboard. With the flex you don't have any such limitation because there is no graphics chip built-in to the motherboard.

@ssolie Quote:
You sure about that? Amiga Future's speed tests showed that the Flex was measurably slower than the original non-flex Sam for graphical (3D?) stuff. Presumably due to the Flex having to communicate with the graphics card over longer & less well specified connections (even though they are both PCI).