SAM EP460 presale, will be out in November

http://www.vesalia.de/e_sam460ex.htm

Preorders are possible, ETA November

SAM460ex, FlexATX Motherboard incl. AmigaOS 4.1
895.80 euros incl. VAT

SAM 460ex

FlexATX Motherboard w/ SoC AMCC 460ex CPU


The SAM460ex is the third modular motherboard produced by ACube Systems Srl (see also SAM440ep Flex).

The core of the Sam 460ex board is the PowerPC 460ex, a System On Chip (SoC) produced by AMCC under license from IBM. The 460ex can be clocked up to 1.066 GHz.

Technical data:
flex-ATX form factor (21.6 cm x 17 cm)
8 layers PCB
AMCC 460ex SoC - up to 1.066 Ghz
max 2 GB DDR2 RAM - 200-pin SODIMM up to 533 Mhz
Silicon Motion SM502 embedded MoC (audio/video) max 64 MB Gfx RAM
Audio 5.1 Realtek ALC655 codec
PCI-express 4x lanes slot (16x mechanical connector)
PCI-express 1x lane slot (*)
PCI slot, 32 bit, 66/33 Mhz, 3.3V
1x SATA2 port (*)
6x USB2 EHCI/OHCI ports
1x 10/100/1000 Ethernet port (another GigaEthernet is optional)
Lattice XP2 FPGA with 80 I/O pins expansion connector (optional)
UMTS/GSM module (optional, requires add-on card)
512 MB NAND Flash (optional)
integrated SD USB card reader
RTC clock
Serial port, 8 wires
I2C and SPI/I2C buses
passive cooling (only on low speed CPUs)
U-Boot 2010.06

@vox

Noticed at Aw.net, seems full PCI-E support is not yet resolved, but would need simple Uboot flash (and RadeonHD driver in oS4 as well)

Had a look at the sam 460 pdf manual on Acube site today this dont sound to good. Hope it is fixed soon.

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/v ... hp?topic_id=32605&forum=2

here is bit that worrys me. The bit about PCI-Express slot is not current fully supported, U-boot

Video output
The current U-Boot version supports video output from:
- onboard SM502 VGA port
- Radeon card on PCI slot
To change the preferred video output, select it from the ?Video Option? U-Boot menu.
Video output from a Radeon card in the PCI-Express slot is not current fully supported, U-boot
will POST the card (to be initialized later from the Operating System) but video output is not
enabled.
Notes
1 - the SATA2 port and the PCI-e 1x slot are mutually exclusive, only one of them can be used
at a time:
? to use the SATA2 port, close J16 with a jumper, and select the corresponding entry
in the
?PCI-E 1x / SATA-2? U-Boot menu.
? to use the PCI-e 1x slot, remove the J16 jumper, and select the corresponding entry
in the
?PCI-E 1x / SATA-2? U-Boot menu.
A reboot

@vox

As i understand it what is not supported is that uboot text is displayed on a PCI-e card but you can display your OS screen (if your OS have drivers for it) on the PCI-e gfx card

@Fransexy

Yes, but however the OS at this time does not include the RadeoHD driver (should be changed today as of AmiWest and as Hyperion promotes EP460 version of OS4 I hope) so since its impossible to find Radeon 9000 PCI-Express at the moment of speaking, it`s not usable for gfx.

But is about to change.

Even the RadeonHD driver comes late (hope not)
it has built in gfx on board.

@vox

Very expensive its price... almost almost as the X1000

@Templario

have you heard a final price of the X1000 yet?

@MoonSire

Last I heard was that the X1000 would be north of ?1500.
At todays exchange rate, that is 1685.98 euros.

That is for a complete machine though.

@MoonSire
Not, but the X1000 is sell as a full machine, case, keyboard, mouse, etc. well, monito not.

@Templario

I agree, but that is about 650 euros (expected)
+ 18% VAT + don`t forget that ~120 euros is AmigaOS 4

X1000 will be about 50% higher even without HDD, Optical drive, Case, mouse, keyboard (which nowadays are all in one slightly more then 100 euros)

And difference is just in CPU, XMOS and more USB. In all other tech aspects (PCI-E, fast RAM, SATA2) EP460 is comparable.

And X1000 is not yet not announced, so for the time being, this is top of the line "AmigaOne"

What I always find weird with Acube is extra components like e.g. integrated GFX which is not good, FPGA (without any obvious use), not so good integrated sound etc.
I feel that without it board could go at least 100 euros lower, but not even Flex models are free of those.

Maybe it will drop a bit when X1000 arrives as competitor.

Also, we don`t know is the X1000 price listed without or with VAT, which is 18% difference.

Mods note: Removed as off-topic in this thread.

@kolla

If you're here to destroy the good news about Sam460, then I think you can go some where else.

@vox

I'm very interested in a new PPC board with a fast CPU because for somethings my current Sam goes very slow, for example to games, not for programming with Hollywood that is is perfect, only that for me is very expensive, when I only go to use it for games and videoplayers, if DvPlayer with this CPU shows the current format videos for example HDVideos.
But I'll wait to see work both motherboards Sam and X1000.

Quote:

I'm not here to destroy the good news, I just pointed out that it is good news for more camps. I had plans to buy SAM-EP460, but various things have happened:
* the pricetag for the 460 has gone up alot since its initial "Euro 600 - 650" - it's now "Euro 765", and mandatory additional 130,- for OS4.1.
* OS4.1 is now announced for hardware I already have, so I can test run it on that instead.

The new price tag will no doubt make at least some people change their minds regarding the SAM460, people who will then perhaps look at alternatives. Why this is regarded off topic is beyond me.

@kolla

Quote:
Indeed. Spoil the sensitive, hardware-hungry crowd with announcements of a 650-euro board, only to tell them later that VAT will make it 760 euro in the end.?Certain guys in Italy should dig up their dusty secondary-school primer on marketing.

@vox

Yes the Sam460 is strange configuration, it looks more for embedded then for desktop.

Onboard GFX chip whit out 3D, one single connector for SATA = simple media presentation computer or controller card for something, at least it?s upgradeable to a full computer.

About the price, it?s maybe higher than some have hopped; if you remember Acube made a number of price adjustments to the sam440ep, when sam440flex was released the price dropped even more because onboard stuff was removed.
ACube as at least produced quality hardware whit few cases of hardware failures.

@kolla

No, its just 650 euros and tax.

No, you can`t install EP440 OS 4.1 and expect it work,
each board series comes with its OS 4.1 install,
no universal version (like one Windows per
computer licence, but here it`s more obvious)
and X1000 will be more expensive even
when stripped of additional components
and OS 4.x

@LiveForIt

It is targeted for embedded systems and linux. That was explained by ACube from the beginning. It just works well for an AmigaOS desktop solution also.

@logicalheart

Is now a mature desktop. But they could put at least Radeon 9200 onboard

Quote:

Must suck to pay those extra 130 euros for AmigaOS when all you want is an embedded developer board for Linux.

Quote:

And 130 euros more for OS4.1

Alot more than what was originally announced anyways.

Quote:

Did I suggest that I would expect that?