Cyrus+

Hi everyone,

This topic may have been discussed sorry if I have missed it, I am considering buying a Cyrus+ when they become available however I am confused about which one is more powerful.

Is the Cyrus+ more powerful than the X1000 or is the X1000 still the flagship model?

Thank you for your time.

Fairdinkem.

I'll take a stab at this one..
First, the usual disclaimer:
I am not an employee of A-EON nor AmigaKit, nor am I a spokesperson for either company.
What follows is not an official statement, but just the opinion of one Amigan.

Now, with the details covered, here we go.

Cyrus+ looks great, the specifications we have seen so far appear that it's performance may be similar to the Nemo/X1000.

But there are small differences that could tip the scales either way depending on your specific application.

Most importantly, the Cyrus+ has not yet begun full production, and all specifications are subject to change anytime between now and then.

Also, while we are all optimistic, there is no set release date for the Cyrus+.

So to answer your question properly, we don't know, and we won't know until Cyrus+ has been released. Even then, it may be application specific.. for instance, I don't think the Cyrus supports AltiVec, and I believe the X1000 does.. (I could be mistaken on either count) Whether or not that matters depends on whether your application of choice can recognize and make good use of that part of the processor.

There is also the multicore factor, which we can not yet fully evaluate until the OS support for multicore has been released

So we can guess all day long, but the most accurate answer I can offer is we just don't know yet.

Since the release date for Cyrus is unknown, I'd suggest taking the plunge for an X1000. I have never regretted it for a second.

I invite corrections to anything I may have misstated.

@LyleHaze

Thanks for your answer Lyle.

@LyleHaze

Just a thought for you, if Cyrus+ is the pretty much the same as Nemo performance wise but Nemo having the PA Semi chip with altivec engine then what is the point of manufacturing Cyrus+ if this is the case?

@Fairdinkem

yes it is true the X1000 have the altivec engine and the cyrus not , but 5040 cpu version will be quad core cpu with much more Mips performances compared with the X1000.
In any case the "smallest" version of Cyrus will have more mips compared with the x1000 machine.
The only question will be: the amigaos will have multi core support and will be 64bit capable? will amigaos break the 2gb of memory allocation and will after 20 years have the memory protection?

@Fairdinkem

Taking in account specification of cyrus and nemo, cyrus maybe will be a bit faster as it have faster and bigger caches, faster cpu speed , faster memory and co. Of course it didn't have altivec (which some parts of OS use), so its to be seen if it will be indeed faster or not. But my pure speculation it can be faster in some areas, and can be a bit slower when altivec involved (but i doubt there a lot of places in os where altivec is in use).

As for 3d party apps, only one altivec based app i use its mui-mplayer, but with 2ghz cpu i will have no needs in altivec version, as pure one will be faster (in theory of course).

@LyleHaze
Quote:

Correct on both.

The Cyrus was announced to use the Freescale P5020 processor, or perhaps P5040, which use the Freescale e5500 processor core. That is 64bit, but does not have Altivec support. The newer e6500 core is 64bit and also does Altivec. This core is in the T4240, T4160, and T208x products. The P5020 is dual-core e5500, while the P5040 is quad-core e5500. The T1020 and T1040 are also e5500 cores, no Altivec.

The X1000/Nemo board uses the PA Semi processor. I forget the part name/number, but they only sold one before being borgified into Apple... PA16 or something like that. This processor is 64bit, and does Altivec. It is dual-core.

Depending on what you are doing, the Cyrus may or may not beat the X1000. If you are doing something that benefits heavily from Altivec, then X1000 may be your champion. If you are doing something that is not as suited to Altivec acceleration, but is heavily multithreaded, then the Cyrus might be able to win out. (Particularly if they do ship some Cyrus boards with P5040 quad-cores, dueling dual-cores may be a closer finish) That will be more of a sensible comparison after Amiga OS4.x ships multiprocessing support (SMP or whatever to actually run multiple threads).

@Fairdinkem
Quote:
because PA Semi chip it's difficult to buy and actually
it cost a fortune

I wonder how many programs and to what extent AmigaOS takes advantage of the altivec engine?

Almost none in general. Just some of them have altivec versions as well, as non altivec ones. As well as in the OS4 itself some routines are altivec optimized too, but its to be seen if it will make difference in end.

@Fairdinken

Based on the specs revealed so far, it also looks like the Cyrus will have no onboard sound. This may or may not be a factor in your purchasing decisions. For example, if someone was appaled by the monster size of the X1000 and hoped for the Cyrus to fit into a slim desktop case, they'll have a pretty hard time finding an OS4-compatible low-profile soundcard.

i thik the reason for the lack of onboard sound, is because the missing sb600 southbridge which x1000 have.
The cyrus will have ddr3 ram, and pcie v2 x4slot. which should be like a x8 v1 slot.
if i remember correctly trevor said that the board would cost almost the same as the x1000. but the cpu should be cheaper. atleast for the small cpu's. no idea about the p5040. i also think the cyrus will have l3 cache. correct me if i'm wrong. but don't think the x1000 has this.

@Antique

Quote:
Yeah, something like that.

@Antique

Quote:
no, you're right. the P5020 has two 1MB shared L3 caches.

-- eliyahu

@Fairdinkem

It is not possible to compare yet. Cyrus is not available. And even if it would be here, we just can say that they are in the same range of performance.

One has Altivec and not the other. But the second one has maybe faster busses or bigger cashes.

And we have to know that the performance of a machine depends on how hardware is supported (cache settings, use of accelerators, ...).

I am sure that Cyrus boards will be nice and powerful, basically at the same level than the X1000.

All points well made.
I wonder how the expansion differences will stack up?

We know the Nemo has 1@X16 or 2@X8 PCIe, which
makes dual graphics cards an option..
Nemo adds 2@X1 PCIe, 2PCI, a Xorro slot, and 4 SATA.

How does that compare to the current estimates for Cyrus?
(Yes, I'll call everything an estimate until product is released!)
The press release I am reading now states that Cyrus+ may have
1@X16 PCIe, with the next one down being an X4, so the Nemo
may be the better choice for dual graphics cards.
Most of the rest looks very similar, except Cyrus has 2 SATA
instead of 4, and I see no mention of IDE/PATA interface.

According to the flyer I am reading, the Cyrus+ will have
a dual core 64 bit e550. I do believe there may be other options
in the future. Nemo/X1000 is definitely dual core.

It's all speculation so far, but I look forward to seeing how it
all works out. I have an X1000 and I know how it runs. I have
no doubt that Cyrus+ will also be a very capable machine.

@all
in any case Aeon or Acube can make a super powerful machine but the big today problem remain the Os.

Video:
No 3D support for RadeonHD,
no h264,
no Vmem up to 256mb.

OS:
no Memory protection
no Memory up to 2GB
no 64bit support
no multi core.

When we will have all this working we can speak about new machine ...
For now the best and full supported old machine remain the Xe and the Pegasos 2... The X1000 is the best new choice but isnt full supported like the 460 but have the opportunity to use a second pci video card for 3d

@tlosm

Well what we do know is that beta testers are testing multicore AmigaOS now with the new scheduler and Ssolie said it is working very well even now, and that was at Amiwest and sometime has now past between then and now.He also said Multicore needs to ship with Cyrus+ and that Cyrus+ was almost read during Amiwest speech, and if we go by Trevors blog they are nearly in the hands of beta testers as varysis showed a photo of them booting to AmigaOS.

Buying a pci radeon 9250 to satisfy my 3d requirements is no big deal. Galium sounds like it is not far away as most major hurdles have been jumped the Winsys component was all that was left according to Ssolies update at Amiwest also which is really exciting.

@Fairdinkem

have a full hd 4gb vram full working on AmigaOs will be really exiting but ... for now on my peggy 1266mhz (i have the Sam 460,Peggy and Xe) i will be happy for have a 9800pro full supported by my lovly Amiga os and memory protection ;)

It's also reported that cyrus will have an improved Xena.
As soon as Xena will be used in some way, this would be for someone one of the point of choise.