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That's where I greatly disagree. If you want to benchmark use real code, not some laboratory ware.
The question for Joe Average is not what does the cpu theoretically, but which computer replays hd video best, which one provides me the most fluent browsing experience. And there will be no subarchitecture optimizes binaries for this and that. Hence, try it with ordinary code and no specially tailored one. That would be misleading.

You are kidding, right?
To not use all features/ capacities of CPU is a wise idea?
To keep it simple ... It's like building a highway with 4 lanes and only use 1 ...

For everyday use a 68k CPU should be enough ...
Give Trevor a call and tell him to use a 750 G3. It's cheap and all you need

Sorry, it's unbelievable ...

Tell the x86 guys to not use the SIMD unit of a i7. It will be fun for sure
I wonder, what do you want in fact?

> If the code is heavy on FP-code or bandwidth use a G5, if it is
> AltiVec use a T4.

AltiVec on a 2.7 GHz PPC970 may be faster than on a 1.8 GHz e6500. And are you sure that bandwidth of PPC970 is better than e6500?

> I have only tried to put the CPUs in relation to each other ...

Already done long ago:
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=743

> How do I know that the code is G4 optimized? Because for a long time
> it was the only CPU in Amiga land available ;-)

For an even longer time, G2 and G3 have been used in "Amiga land". So it may as well be optimized for one of them.

> It surprises me, that everyone is surprised about the performance
> of the NXP offerings ... who in hell has really thought, that a T4
> is as fast as the latest Intel offerings?

The comparison was with a decade-old Motorola/Freescale offering, not with any latest Intel offering. That's worlds apart.

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No, I am not kidding. I am pretty serious.
Of course an optimized code for every processor would speed things up. But it messes things up, too. Look, today we have quite some differerent cpus for MorphOS already (603e, 604, 5200B, 750CXe, 7447ies, some other G4s, 970ies). But binaries don't care about that issue. They are identical for all these processors. The only exception is Altivec. Nobody wants special binaries for a particular processor, what an ugly mess that would be... If that were the case arguments against the Tabor board would be void, too. The thing is about usability in real life: One architecture/ISA - one binary. But no sub ISA binaries.

All in all it's definitely not a G3 that is good for all, but the processor that executes generic code fastest is choice #1. In MorphOS ppc land that is ibm 970. Unfortunately the 970 bysed systems have their downsides (bulky, noisy, leaky, energy-hungry).

The other thing is to realize when a horse that gets ridden is actually dead. And the ppc horse is a dead for desktop usage since a while. Put you saddle on the back of a new horse if you want to ride on.

[ Editiert durch Zylesea 27.01.2016 - 00:12 ]

> today we have quite some differerent cpus for MorphOS already
> (603e, 604, 5200B, 750CXe, 7447ies, some other G4s, 970ies).

...and 460 with 440 core :-)

> binaries [...] are identical for all these processors. The only exception
> is Altivec. Nobody wants special binaries for a particular processor,
> what an ugly mess that would be...

We already have that with special E-UAE binary for 970, and we had it on m68k :-)

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And with four times the threads, the e6500 is likely to have an advantage anyway.

BTW - Andreas, did Freescale get around to enhancing AltiVec on the e6500?

>>> If the code is heavy on FP-code or bandwidth use a G5, if it is
>>> AltiVec use a T4.

>> AltiVec on a 2.7 GHz PPC970 may be faster than on a 1.8 GHz e6500.
>> And are you sure that bandwidth of PPC970 is better than e6500?

> with four times the threads, the e6500 is likely to have an advantage anyway.

It'd be even more with the T4240 instead of the T4160 (four times the threads of 2x PPC970MP) or T4080 (four times the threads of 1x PPC970MP or 2x PPC970FX).

> Andreas, did Freescale get around to enhancing AltiVec on the e6500?

Yes, as reported 3½ years ago:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7183&start=805

"AltiVec technology for the e6500 core is essentially the same as AltiVec technology from the e600 core, except for the following:
- Adds new instructions for computing absolute differences [...] These speed up in the inner loop of motion estimation video processing
- Adds new instructions for dealing with misaligned vectors more easily [...]
- Adds new instructions for dealing with elements of vectors [...] These allow loading/storing of arbitrary elements to arbitrary addresses
- Instructions for moving data from GPRn to vector register [...]"

Doesn't look like too much.
It is hard to tell how much of a performance increase this will provide, but then, it beats not having AltiVec at all.

> It is hard to tell how much of a performance increase this will provide

None, unless the new instructions are being used. And using the new instructions means the code won't run on CPUs with "old" AltiVec, I guess. I wonder what ramifications the fact that data stream (dst) instructions are no-oped on the new AltiVec will entail, if any.

The OS4 Kommunity seems to run on a different clock than the rest of the world. Where is the X5000? Where is everything else promised? The X5000 was announced on Jan 8, 2014. I hope this boat anchor isn't holding back further proper MorphOS development.

1523804_741436842533370_1201160379_o.jpg

> The X5000 was announced on Jan 8, 2014.

Yes, this was when the "AmigaOne X5000" name was decided upon. The Cyrus mainboard itself was announced even half a year earlier:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7001&start=780
http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2013-07-00015-EN.html

> I hope this boat anchor isn't holding back further proper MorphOS development.

At least the delay of the X5000 won't hold back MorphOS development ;-)

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Good point, this is really snail pace.

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Maybe not if the machine actually gets released to end users. If A-Eonkit goes belly up and the X5000 never gets released, then it seems to me an awful lot of development time has been wasted that could have gone into the ISA switch.

I doubt they will go bankrupt. Trevor doesn't do it for the money. It seems that he don't mind losing the money invested either. I bet he want as much of it back as possible, but if nothing comes out of it except for a little fun I think he is satisfied.

>>> I hope this boat anchor isn't holding back further proper MorphOS development.

>> At least the delay of the X5000 won't hold back MorphOS development ;-)

> Maybe not if the machine actually gets released to end users. If A-Eonkit goes
> belly up and the X5000 never gets released, then it seems to me an awful lot of
> development time has been wasted that could have gone into the ISA switch.

From the point of view of someone who calls the X5000 a 'boat anchor', imminent release, further delay or even entire cancellation won't make a difference as development time will have been wasted for porting either way.

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A-Eon is a registered Limited company. Granted that probably means different than I am used to in the US, but it is not something that Trevor is simply going to throw money at forever.

According to the latest filing, A-Eon has £86,381 in the bank and £673,447 in short term debt which is coming due in the coming couple months. I strongly doubt sales of 3D drivers and a few games on AmiStore will be enough to service that debt. A-Eon's hands may be tied by HYPErion, they don't seem to want to release the hardware until OS4.1 is done and development appears from the outside to be halted.

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I call it a boat anchor because it seems to have acted exactly as such. Development of OS4.X has come to a screeching halt, just like a boat tossing an anchor into the ocean. On the MorphOS side we hear that support of further PowerMac G5 models (PCIe) isn't proceeding due to focus elsewhere, which is likely X5000 work. Just speculating but makes sense. If the X5000 ends up being canceled, the work put into it sure has acted like a boat anchor IMO.

@redrumla

Trevor is rich and somewhat eccentric. I think he can keep his company floating until he can release the X5000. Heck, it's even possible that he will release it anyway with only MorphOS on it if the AOS 4 port takes too long. With a promise of an upcoming 4.1 I bet a lot of fanboys are going to buy the board anyway, even if they are just gonna look at it or run PPC Ubuntu on it (I doubt many of them will even touch MorphOS). Don't forget that the boards are already made. I seriously doubt Trevor would prefer throwing those away than letting them be runned on a non AOS 4 system.

MorphOS Team is not just working on the X5000 port, but also on drivers for Radeon HD cards which will also benefit SAM 460 users and a possible G5 PCI-x port. And then we have all the internals that is being worked on too. The Team isn't focusing on the X5000 alone.

>>>>> I hope this boat anchor isn't holding back further proper MorphOS development.

>>>> At least the delay of the X5000 won't hold back MorphOS development ;-)

>>> Maybe not if the machine actually gets released to end users. If A-Eonkit goes
>>> belly up and the X5000 never gets released, then it seems to me an awful lot of
>>> development time has been wasted that could have gone into the ISA switch.

>> From the point of view of someone who calls the X5000 a 'boat anchor', imminent
>> release, further delay or even entire cancellation won't make a difference as
>> development time will have been wasted for porting either way.

> If the X5000 ends up being canceled, the work put into it sure has acted like a
> boat anchor IMO.

And if it will get released, porting MorphOS to it won't have held back "further proper MorphOS development", acting like a 'boat anchor'?

> a possible G5 PCI-x port

PCIe or PCI-E :-)

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I think this is a myth, carefully cultivated for some reason, probably to raise goodwill or some kind of saint status around the AeonKit business sphere. A marketing twist. Like they "saved" those community forums they bought, like they "saved" those old pieces of SW they bought, like they "saved" the developers by funneling them through their "app store". You don't sell €3,000 machines as "charity" or to lose money on purpose. That's my firm opinion.

They have a huge gamble in the X5000, it's long overdue, and it has turned out that it won't be offering any significant performance gain over current PPC machines (a platform that is hopelessly behind anyway). And if the rumors about a thosand Tabor motherboards (with that uncompatible FPU) already built and paid for is true, then a huge loss is a fact. A lot of money. A lot. For nothing. Excentric or not, nobody likes flushing huge amounts of money down the toilet. That wouldn't be excentric, that would be insane.

If the X5000 fails, and if the Tabor fails, don't expect him to keep pumping in huge amounts of money in sequel gambles. Especially not given the obvious hopeless OS4 situation, that must be really frustrating for them.

"AeonKit aren't doing it for the money" - Well, I call that bluff...

well, at least morphos 3.10 release is not depended on X5000 release.

no. it's just postponed because of this (because of OS4 is not ready yet).

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I don't see any reason the X5000 would fail.
Tabor, while not a good solution, is still likely to be purchased by the OS4 fanboys that want a low cost system.

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The 2.5 year lead time is a failure in itself (clock is still ticking), as is having a batch of produced boards sitting on a shelf collecting dust and getting old fashioned by the day. A huge amount of money is tied up in this, and the gamble is enormous since it doesn't offer that much beyond the X1000 spec wise and performance wise, especially not relative current standards. It's more of a sideways move than a leap forward, and this compared to an X1000, which was in 2005 level performance territory to begin with. And it's still a grotesquely overpriced piece of HW, only marginally cheaper than the X1000. The market for X1000 priced OS4 machines was very narrow to begin with, even half a decade ago when some people still were interested in that kind of stuff, no matter the cost. And how many of those people already bought an X1000 will actually coin up almost a similar insane price a second time only to get about what they already have? My guess is, not very many. Especially not considering the questional state of OS4 and its future. Is there a heartbeat there still? Are there any developers? Seems low-level coders disappeared years ago. File system development abandoned, gfx drivers abandoned, etc. Is there any competence left capable of building support for new machines? No updates whatsoever for a very long time. And what "OS4 fanboys" for that matter? Even the just-want-to-talk-and-dream-about-it crowd seems to have moved on, judging by forum activity. These days it's the same 10-15 guys talking in circles. I suppose reality has started to shine through. Ben Hermans is currently milking the last few possible sales out of OS4 Final(!) through the €30 digital download edition for emulators running on X86. Who will want a ridiculously underpowered PPC machine like the Tabor? In 2018? By then there will be nobody left.

And you don't see how it could fail?

> Seems low-level coders disappeared years ago.

The Frieden brothers were present at the Amiga 30 years celebrations in Neuss 5 months ago where they told they were currently working on OS4 a couple of hours per week.

> OS4 Final(!)

OS4.1(!) Final Edition.

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no, MorphOS Team told me that X5000 release has nothing to do with MorphOS release date. MorphOS will be released as soon as it is ready, no matter if X5000 is available or not.