Should I buy an AmigaOne 500 or an AmigaOne X1000?

After seeing an X1000 in action at a friend's house the other day, running on a modern widescreen monitor, I decided that it was time to finally upgrade. My trusty AmigaOne Micro has served me well but it is getting a little outdated now, especially in the graphics department.

So, the big question then: AmigaOne 500 or AmigaOne X1000?

The 500 looks nice and is quite affordable, and the X1000, while being the deluxe model, didn't seem to perform that amazingly when I saw it. But my friend is encouraging me to get the X1000 so I'd like some opinions of the pros and cons of the two systems.

I don't mind paying the money for the X1000 because I know it will last me for 10 years like my AmigaOne Micro has (which was also very expensive at the time - $1600 AU) BUT if I'm going to pay up that amount of money for an X1000 then it would be nice to have some real reasons, rather than just "It's the deluxe model!"

Any advice would be appreciated!

I would go for a x1000 becuse i think all drivers are already done. You can add more cards to your motherboard etc. More power and when Hyperion gets support for dualcore it will be superb. You have to ask yourself if you can wait for a x1000 and do you need all the power?

I love my AmigaOne 500 its a really good machine but the lack of dma on the internal sataport and the unfinished sound driver is not so good. Acube havent told us when we will get it.

Whatever you choose you get a great machine!!

@ Hitman

isn't it just great to have the choice of buying brand new AmigaOne systems today

I might be biased but I would say go for the X1000 if you have the funds because right now we are running on a single core and it's much faster than your micro for sure so imagine when it's running on full dual core Also there are more expansion possibilities on the X over the 500.

Of course once full 3D acceleration is here both the 500 & X1000 will be fully up to speed with the most modern graphics cards thanks to Hans

The X1000 does not have complete drivers, and the Operating System revision for the X1000 is still considered as beta until OS4.2 is released.

I use both the X1000 and the 500, and it is my opinion you should get the X1000. The performance speed is much faster, and the expansion slots allow for cards which negate the need for the on-board drivers until those are complete.

If I had it my way, I would have an X-1000 in a MicroATX form, but I just prefer smaller systems. :)


AmigaOne X1000
Advantage: Much faster
Advantage: Plenty of expansion

AmigaOne 500 (Sam460)
Advantage: Lower cost
Advantage: Small
Advantage: More drivers completed

Hi Hitman,

The X-1000 is 1.8 GHz whereas the AmigaOne 500/Sam 460 is already 1.15 GHz (IIRC), so the speed increase is only 56%. Only! However, the X-1000 has much more expansion capability than the Sam series (takes up to 8 GB of RAM, has lots more PCI slots, etc).

The Sam 460 series is more advanced in development than the X-1000, but betatesters have the advantage of later releases of the X-1000 SW.

Currently the Sam 460 has only early versions of the built-in SATA driver and on-board audio, but everything else is done. The X-1000 has a beta version of the network driver and no on-board audio support yet, but it's in development.

Hmm, 4 replies, all recommending the X1000 - ok, I'm starting to get convinced. Thanks everyone.

@logicalheart: Yes, the X000 is a huge beast and I'm not really sure why its creators chose to make it so big in these days of miniaturisation. I suppose they wanted to make it look impressive! But I do prefer smaller systems, which is why I have an AmigaOne Micro (which I had to wait an extra year for). I suppose for visiting friends and computer clubs I still have my "portable" Micro!

@tony: I didn't think that we had a working internal ethernet driver yet? Well bonus points if we do I suppose! When at my friends, he couldn't boot without removing and reinserting the USB cable for his keyboard and mouse as the OpenFirmware wouldn't recognise them. Do you have this problem or was it just his keyboard and mouse?

I'm going to go and do some research on the respective systems websites...

But at the moment you can't buy an X1000

@Ricossa: This is a good point and I have E-Mailed E-EON to ask when I can expect availability. I'm not in a huge rush but if I have to wait a year then this would certainly affect my decision!

A couple more questions:

For both the A500 and X1000 owners in this forum, what are they like in terms of noise? I see that the A500 has a passively cooled CPU. So does my AmigaOne Micro, and it also does not have a fan on its power supply (a so-called "pico" power supply). And yet it is still as noisy as a vaccuum cleaner due to the fan on the Radeon 7000 GPU! It would be nice to have a nice quiet system, whether it be A500 or X1000 so I'm eager to know how noisy these are.

Is it really true that the SATA on the A500 does not suport DMA? That doesn't make sense in the year 2012, and especially so given the throughput of SATA!

Many thanks for any information!

It depends which gfx card your x1000 has. The fan on mine was very loud. I have resorted to fitting an after market passive cooler. Now my x1000 is very very quiet.

Hi ddni,
Which quiet gfx card did you bought to replace your original one (4850, is it?)
Thank for the info.

Had the same dilemma. SAM 460 board is very picky and limited. Onboard SATA is bets forgotten immidiatelly as slow and slow so SATA card populates PCI slot. That looses basically ANY expandability. For small system its good but once you add RAM, RadeonHD and SATA card that is pretty much it. Also CPU is integrated and is slower then G4 heavily but RAM and SATA card are fast.

X1000 is difficult to obtain, but when compared to SAM 460 is worth of price - real exapandablity, more faster RAM, dual core.

Currently X1000 onboard sound, SATA and ethernet are NOT supported but that will change with OS 4.2.

Oh yes, with X1000 you also get licence for OS 4.2 once it is out.

So for those who can save and wait (my decision) X1000. For currently fast and availiable SAM 460.

But PLEASE buy complete system. SAM boards are extremely picky with voltage PCI cards, RAM, low profile Radeon etc.

X1000 all the way

I never had any Sam but went from A1G4XE to the X1000. If you got money and time to wait to get your copy of X1000 then go for it :) Otherwise go for the Sam460.

Jason will show a port of Aros PPC on Sam 460 and as I understand it there will be a aeros-version too. So it seems that Sam 460 offers the most choices in the nearterm.

if you can afford it my advice is to buy an AmigaOne X1000, but remember that it will take some time before you can use it at best, however that reasons are valid also for Sam460 (AmigaOne 500) machines .. it's up to you

I am very happy with my X1000 and don^t want an another computer.The only thing that bothers me is that we don^t have enough software.
We need more good software. That problem have all Amigas like Aros or Moprhos

AROS for SAM 460 ...? Nice
Hope there will be X1000 edition too

AROS for everyone.

Well, SAM 460 situation with drivers is also ... strange.

- Audio is supported now but anyway its not best audio chip and there is no expandablity
-Onboard SATA is not yet really supported and even if it would be, it would allow connecting just one device! (why ACube?)

This is common but also for SAM 460
-Radeon HD is 2D only
-There are no PCI-E x1 cards to be used in both systems (These are really modern SATA and audio cards that have no drivers in OS4)

And somehow it seems X1000 has got limelight and will be supported. However, both systems will benefit from RadeonHD support and will be able to use most modern Radeons

Quote:
The 460ex SATA driver fully supports all PIO modes. The only feature not yet implemented is UDMA support. As for the single SATA port, the 460ex chip only supports one port as can be seen in the datasheet.

Quote:There are some PCIe x1 SATA cards which use SiI3114 chips, and they work in the X1000 using the existing sii3114ide.device (I know, I have one myself; one problem is I have to remove it if I want to boot into Linux). Also, some users (including TrevorDick himself) have reported success with a PCI-E to PCI adapter, so a sound card or network card can be moved from a PCI slot to a PCIe slot to make room for e.g. a CatWeasel or a secondary PCI graphics card, e.g. one which is supported with 3D.

More info over at the Hyperion support forum.

Best regards,

Niels