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I believe so, yes.

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I remember HW addons for the A1200 that made it possible to play mp3's. While that is cool, it doesn't mean the A1200 was particular powerful or even suitable in a modern multimedia context.

I wasn't necessarily talking about video decoding either, but about the fact that the X5000 comes as a price tag of a premium 2016 workstation, but despite that we will probably see upcoming discussions saying "...but browsing those complex web 2.0 websites should become faster once JS JIT is properly implemented".

PPC's in the shape of used Mac HW is easy to "forgive". Like: "OK, it's not very powerful, but hey, at €100 it's still cool and fun for what it is". The X5000 will perform about the same as those 2005 Mac's (or slightly less) we use for MorphOS, but with a price tag resembling 2016 Mac Pro's.

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Of course the hardware you mentioned could do that, it doesn't because that would unnecessarily waste cpu power.
Our own hardware could assist in decoding as well, but no one has tackled that task yet.
And our more powerful systems can decode video pretty well on cpu power alone.

Can the X5000 decode 1080p video?
I guess we will have to see.
A G5 can, so it seems likely.
GPU assisted decoding would definitely help though.

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The customers who will buy it just want to run OS4, MorphOS or both. All they want is a machine that runs those OSs and their applications well. It is powerful enough to run both sufficiently well and for some that's the only qualifier they need.

All production runs of SAM440, SAM460 and the X1000 sold out despite the high price. Clearly the price to performance ratio is not as important to some as it is to you when it comes to indulging their Amiga hobby.

I'm actually slightly surprised that the X5000 beats a 2.3GHz G5 in most nbench tests, because I remember the opposite being true when testing the X5000 against my 2GHz G5. However, I just reran the tests and indeed the X5000 wins against my 2GHz G5 in most tests, and that's despite my X5000 only using single channel memory.

However, you need to remember that the CPU core used in the X5000 is basically a G3. A highly clocked G3 with 2 cores, but still a G3. You shouldn't expect miracles from it.

How big is the loss of Altivec on this Cyrus board from the perspective of a MorphOS user?

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And a PPC mac would qualify just fine for this. It has worked very well for MorphOS. The X5000 offers nothing new when it comes to performance. Sure, it will be available as new (but also meaning that it's untried and unproven), it doesn't need as much cooling as a G5, and you could plug in newer gfx cards (for whatever good that may be). So at the same 2005 level performance, are those differences *really* worth 10x-20x the cost? And where are the laptops? And the minis? Or maybe the right question is: Where is the x86?

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The OS4 machine models that has been produced are each counted in the hundreds, tops. Made in sporadic batches, over almost one and a half decade. Most of the time there hasn't been anything available at all, and when it has, it has either been out of financial reach for most, or so underperforming it's hardly usable. Now there are hardly any people left. I wouldn't call this a particularly successful strategy.

> it was kind of rhetorical

I know. I just answered your insinuation that there were no such people.

> didn't really ask for names.

I didn't give any as you know them anyway.

> that was kind of meant as rhetorical as well...

Regurgitating while purpurting to object is a rhetorical figure you just made up on the spot :-)

>"you could plug in newer gfx cards"

Is it worth it?
To me it is, particularly if this means I can uses something better than an X800XT.
I was using R400 cards in my G4 before we even had G5 support and they are more than a little dated.
And the power use of a G5 PowerMac is obscene.

Once I switch to an X5000, I intend to keep a G4 for an AGP system, and my laptop.
That's it, no more new systems until we support X64.

So this will be my last PPC purchase.
I might as well make it the best I can get.

> the X5000 beats a 2.3GHz G5 in most nbench tests

With the nbench tests I conducted, the X5000 wins in only 40% of tests.

> I just reran the tests and indeed the X5000 wins against my 2GHz G5 in most tests

Yes, with the G5 at 2.0 GHz instead of 2.3 GHz, the result should flip over to the X5000 winning in 60% of tests.

> the CPU core used in the X5000 is basically a G3. A highly clocked G3 with 2 cores,
> but still a G3.

Can you elaborate on this classification of the e5500 core? The e500 (Book E / Book3E / Book III-E), which established the lineage the e5500 belongs to, has not been derived from the G3/PPC7xx. The series of ISAs and microarchitectures from e500 to e6500 doesn't fit in Apple's over-simplistic "Gx" scheme.
If e5500 is a G3, then what is e6500? Is e6500 a G4 (AltiVec) or a G5 (AltiVec and 64-bit)? And what is the PA6T? If PA6T is a G5 (AltiVec and 64-bit), does that mean A-Eon's AmigaOne X series has been downgraded from a G5 to a G3?

> you could plug in newer gfx cards (for whatever good that may be)

Availability :-)

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Very true.
Obtaining Apple X800XTs has gotten harder since we adopted them, and they have become more expensive.
We could use newer cards in PCIe G5s (if adopted), but firmware prompts would no longer be available.

The whole system will just simplify upgrading.

And yes, I don't think lumping the e5500 core in with the G3 is fair to it either, its a significantly better core than anything ever used in a G3 level processor. Much closer to a G4, and with some improvements over the e600 core.

On the subject of benchmarks. Sysmon now include socres for an X5000 + R7 250X in the benchmarks section.

Scores for Ragemen.

Sysmon1.jpg


The CPU speed of the X5000 is nearly are third faster.

The X5000 has faster caches, especially L2 but gets oblitrated by the X1000 when it comes reading and writing to memory, apart frrom the "tricky write", whatever that actually means.

Reading from VRAM is over 3 times faster on the X1000 but when writing the X5000 is over 3 times faster. I understand that faster writes to VRAM are what matters and when Amigakit posted the Cow3D results the X5000 put everythiing else to shame.

Scores for SDL Bench.

Sysmon2.jpg

My X1000 has an R9 280 vs the R7 250X in the reference X5000 setup.

X5000 wins in most tests althought the X1000 streaks ahead in the hardware rectfil test at 320X240. Not sure why this is.

> Scores for Ragemen.
> Sysmon1.jpg

RAGEMEM (sans MIPS and VIDEO BUS tests) comparison between my 2.3 GHz PowerMac G5 (=1.00), the X1000 (first column) and the X5000 (second column):

L1
0.59 | 0.65 : READ32
0.84 | 0.93 : READ64
0.78 | 0.87 : WRITE32
0.78 | 0.87 : WRITE64
L2
0.30 | 0.39 : READ32
0.35 | 0.53 : READ64
0.30 | 0.60 : WRITE32
0.24 | 0.53 : WRITE64
RAM
1.04 | 0.27 : READ32
1.42 | 0.48 : READ64
1.97 | 1.12 (0.72*) : WRITE32
2.26 | 1.03 (0.66*) : WRITE64
0.91 | 6.09 : WRITE (Tricky)

*Edit: a more recent report on X5000 RAGEMEM results gives way lower score (about one third less) for RAM WRITE32 and RAM WRITE64, decreasing the relative scores from 1.12 to 0.72 and from 1.03 to 0.66.

> The CPU speed of the X5000 is nearly are third faster.

"Benchmarking MIPS is NEVER relevant. From a benchmark to another, the loop used is not the same, giving different results."
http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=utility/benchmark/ragemem.lha

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 26.12.2017 - 12:32 ]

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How do you run Ragemem on PowerMac? Through OS4emu?

> How do you run Ragemem on PowerMac? Through OS4emu?

Yes, like I did with my Mac mini 6 years ago :-)

Results for PowerMac DP 2,7 GHz:

---> L1 <---
READ32: 13843 MB/Sec
READ64: 19109 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 10274 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 20476 MB/Sec
---> L2 <---
READ32: 12895 MB/Sec
READ64: 17083 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 9872 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 19651 MB/Sec
---> RAM <---
READ32: 3030 MB/Sec
READ64: 3059 MB/Sec
WRITE32: 1468 MB/Sec
WRITE64: 1580 MB/Sec
WRITE: 432 MB/Sec (Tricky)

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Those figures would probably be better on a DDR2 equipped Quad 2.5 GHz PowerMac, but we don't support those.
And I'm not sure we should.
It would discourage people from buying X5000 systems.

> It would discourage people from buying X5000 systems.

...unless they also want to run OS4 ;-)

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If PCIe Quad G5 are faster and a better value for the money, why not I don't see what kind of hardware someone uses MorphOS on helping the morphOS Team one way or the other

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The only way buying a MorphOS license for an X5000 helps the MorphOS Dev. Team, is that it makes them feel a little better about their decision to port MorphOS to such an expensive computer. If the team decides to later support the Quad Core G5 PowerMac, it will be even more energy inefficient, using 4 cores to run a single core capable OS, on a computer that uses so much energy to run those 4 G5 CPU's. At least the X5000 is more energy efficient. That and the ability to use newer PCIe video cards are the strongest selling points for the X5000.

I'm happy to see that my X1000 is not drastically slower than the X5000, but the appeal of using one computer to run both AmigaOS4.x and MorphOS3.10 does make me consider selling my X1000 so I can buy an X5000.

I think I will still wait until Hyperion releases a version of AmigaOS4.x that implements some kind of multiple CPU/Core support, and also wait for the quad core X5000 to be released for sale, so there is no hurry to sell my X1000, as it may take another 10+ years before Hyperion finally releases AmigaOS4.2 with multi-core support of some kind. Actually, I have my doubts that Hyperion will ever release AmigaOS4.2 that actually has all the features promised for that version. Even with all the assistance that A-Eon has provided, trying to inject some new life into the AmigaOS4.x community, Hyperion continues to provide zero evidence of improving their ability to produce updates at a reasonable pace.

@amigadave

A G5 "Quad" only has 2 2core CPUs

Supporting the Quad would also mean supporting Single-CPU-DualCore G5s which are not liquid cooled and might be a bit less ineffective than the current 2-CPU-SingleCore G5s.

Supporting any given PCIe in a G5 is just a matter of providing the init code (won't be able to show OF or use OSX)


Your X1000 allready has 2cores and might in reallife allready be faster then an X5000 (regardless wether the OS uses 1 or 2 cores)

> Your X1000 [...] might in reallife allready be faster then an X5000

Are you referring to AltiVec here? Or are there any non-SIMD reallife benchmarks showing the X1000 being faster than the X5000 per core?

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I think there are very few benchmarks that will show the X1000 to be faster than the X5000, but I do like the fact that the PA6T has Altivec support, and I will probably stick with my X1000 after I have more time to consider the pros and cons of each computer. The only reason I am even considering a X5000, is because of the future MorphOS support. I know that it makes no sense for the MorphOS Dev. Team to support the X1000, and I would not ask them to waste time that could be better used to complete the new x64 version of MorphOS, but that does not stop me from wishing that MorphOS could run on my X1000.

Who knows, maybe with enough influence from A-Eon, AmigaOS4.x will eventually become more bearable to use (but I have no faith in Hyperion completing AmigaOS4.2 as advertised).

As I have previously demonstrated that I have no previous experience with, and know very little about virtual machines, and exactly how SMP works, I will make a statement, or question about the X5000 that may be stupid, but here goes.

Since AmigaOS4.x and MorphOS currently only run on one CPU core, is it feasible at all to think that it could be possible for someone, or some group of programmers (surely outside of Hyperion Entertainment and the MorphOS Dev. Team members) could devise a way to run MorphOS on one of the X5000's CPU cores, while simultaneously running AmigaOS4.1FE in a virtual machine, on the other X5000 CPU core, possibly using separate video cards and monitors, and able to share a portion of memory, for clipboard sharing, but set aside separate memory for the rest of each system, to avoid problems of one OS over writing memory being used by the other OS.

I'm thinking that using a virtual machine this way would be like having a bridgeboard to run the 2nd OS, but instead of a physical bridgeboard, the 2nd currently unused CPU core, would be tasked with running the 2nd OS, on the virtual machine. It would be best, if just one keyboard and mouse were needed, and could be switched back and forth with a special key press combination, or the switching was automatic and the mouse could be dragged from one monitor to the other, which would trigger the switch for both the keyboard and the mouse.

That would be so much better than dual booting, and if successful, perhaps it could also be extended to allow running Linux, or MacOSX in virtual machines on the 2nd core, instead of AmigaOS4.1FE.

I suppose that running AmigaOS4.1FE for Classic Amigas through EUAE on MorphOS, would give similar results, but the performance would be much less, and the limitations of OS4.1 through EUAE make it less of a good option. I'm guessing that AmigaOS4.1FE would be easier to get running on a virtual machine (if what I am describing even qualifies as a virtual machine?), instead of the other way around, starting the X5000 with AmigaOS4.1FE and then running a virtual machine to startup MorphOS3.10

Possible yes, feasable no.

Writing such a VM would be a gigantic task even if you had the support of the guest OS provider to write drivers to it.

Without it you would need to "emulate" an X5000 inside it so you could use the X5000 version of the guest OS.

Another way might be a port of UAE with "passthrough" PPC-EMU running the Amiga version of the guest OS.

Still wouldn't touch the lack of accces to the 2nd core on the host OS.