From: Roger_Nordin@atb.bbs.bad.se (Roger Nordin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Is it silly to buy an A3000 now?
Date: Fri,  9 Oct 92 06:47:53 +0000
Reply-To: Roger_Nordin@atb.bbs.bad.se (Roger Nordin)
Distribution: world
Organization: ANet Test Bench, Karlstad, Sweden 
OD-Comment-To: Internet_Gateway

> I can't beleve you.  You know very little about the Amiga 4000 it seems.
> the graphics are substantailly better, it now uses SIMMS and has more RAM
> capability, and it features a 68040!

Marc was refering to what you cannot upgrade the A3000 too. You can very well 
upgrade the A3000 to a 68040, even a faster 68040 system than the A4000.

> >    I am actively advising people to ignore the A4000, purchase A3000s 
instead
> > and upgrade them later with third-party video cards as soon as DIG is
> > available.

Actually, this is not such a bad idea after all. Although the A4000 offers 
more colours etc right now, typical applications that opens up hires/interlace 
will flicker on the A4000 as I've understood it. The A3000 provides with a 
much lower entry price, which may be the most important factor. You get a 
brand new A3000/25 bundled with Scala MultiMedia for $1499. The A4000 costs 
almost twice that! With 040 boards coming down to the $1000 level, even the 
cost of upgrading the A4000 to a 68040 system will still be less than the 
A4000.

The things your are missing are the 24-bit video slot and the AGA chipset, as 
Marc mentions. However, with the A3000 you can a powerful SCSI host adapter 
connected right to the 32-bit bus, which provides you with a interface to a 
large number of devices, like flopticals, tape streamers, more than two 
harddisks, scannars, you name it. Altough announced as an optional later 
upgrade, the A4000 does not have a SCSI host adapter included. Another problem 
with the A4000 is the lack of chip memory. With screens (which typically are 
the main consumers of chip memory) beeing four times as deep (with more 
colours, you use more colours -- four times as many is quite probable, 
considering this is supposed to give yout the same screen update speed), the 
chip memory should be four times as large. It isn't. So, you can only use 1/
4th "A4000 typical screens". This is a real problem I think -- I have the ECS 
chipset with 2Mb chip memory, and it just sufficient for those resolutions. If 
I added more colours, I would run out of chip memory sometimes! I don't like 
worrying about memory all the time while using a computer.

So, if you want and can afford the A4000, fine, go for it. But, if you want a 
fast machine, but cannot afford the A4000 or doesn't require the AGA chipset 
resolutions, then I see no reason why not to go with the A3000! Not at all. It'
s a very fine piece of hardware, and still a high-powered Amiga system with 32-
bit Zorro III bus. With the A4000 on the market now, A3000 prices are dropping 
to very interesting levels, indeed. With with device independent graphics 
coming up, the lack of AGA chipset won't matter that much.

And, since the A3000 and the A1000 still are the two most beutiful looking 
computers from C= yet, then it might not be such a bad idea to get an A3000...:
)

                        _       .    __
    Roger Nordin     _ //      /!Net /est Bench
 2:203/602.0@fidonet \X/  Internet: Roger_Nordin@bad.se

--- 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware