In one corner - the challenger - with a PowerPC 603e 150 MHz processor - A\box! In the other corner - the ruling champion - with a 166 MHz Pentium MMX processor, 32 MB of RAM, a PCI graphics board, a 3D-blaster, a Sound blaster 32 and a EIDE HD - The Pentium Computer!

The CPU is the most important part of todays PC:s, that is not the case in the A\box since the A\box has a system controlling chip which runs nearly everything in the A\box - the Caiprinha. The 128 bit 200 MHz Caipirinha runs graphics, sound, memory access, disk access and more. There is not much to do for the CPU. Still, if you have the need, you can fit plenty of CPU-power in the A\box.

The benchmark used here is SPECint95. It is not a suitable benchmark to use since it also measures memory speed. This means that the A\box value should be better than it is. This will however, give you something to go on.

THE PROCESSOR	Pentium Computer	Phase 5 A\box
CPU	Pentium MMX 167 MHz	PowerPC 603e 150 MHz
Speed Relation	143-149	100
Processor bus	32 bit	64 bit

Sad, but true - according to the SPECint95 test - the Pentium MMX is 30-35% faster than a 603e at the same clock rate. But of course - if that bothers you - you can always fit two processors into the A\box as it supports dualprocessing. And further, the clock rate of the 603e is expected to go much higher (RISC). I do not yet know the effects of the 64 bit CPU-bus but it could be that the A\box makes up for those 30-35% with the faster CPU-bus. The A\box will also be sold in a model with the 604e CPU as standard.

TOP PROCESSOR POWER	Pentium Computer	Phase 5 A\box
CPU	Pentium MMX 300 MHz	PowerPC 604e 533 MHz*2
Approximate Speed Relation	400	1500

What is this? First of all it is speculation. This is the top CPU you should be able to fit on the motherboard of the computer. The A\box top-CPU is nearly twice as fast as the top Pentium CPU and add to that - dual-processing. I doubt however that this will be the maximum for the A\box. The Amiga 2000 - a computer released in 1987 - can still be equiped with a 68060 processor! Try to fit a Pentium into a PC/XT or a 286. I hope for a future possibilty to fit for example the 630 into the A\box. Of course, the Pentium MMX motherboard may be changed and you can upgrade to another processor type that way. It is the PC-way to do things. Intel are still going strong and the CPU will not lack power in the PC in the near future. PC will probably be going the multiprocessor way but the question is - when? Will the Pentium keep up with the A\box? A fact is, the A\box will be great! Imagine having a computer that can be equiped with two 533 MHz processors in 64 bit busses.

note: These processor do not exist yet and may never be made but they are numbers I have heard somewhere.

note: The Pentium numbers below are for top of the line motherboards with the very latest technology (SDRAM, Triton II, SRAM cache, etc.).

This is where the A\box starts to show its power. The heart of the A\box is not only the CPU. Here we also find the "Caipirinha". "Caipirinha" is a 128 bit curcuit working internally at 200 MHz and extrenally at 100 MHz. The A\box also uses Unified Memory Architechture (UMA) which makes it possible for all the devices in the computer to use the same memory (grafics, sound, etc.). The memory in the A\box is SDRAM. Caipirinha and SDRAM combined give true Amiga Power. It is not the SDRAM that is the secret, there are PC:s with SDRAM and they are about as fast as PC:s with EDO.

Main Memory Speed	Pentium Computer	Phase 5 A\box
Type	50 ns EDO RAM	SDRAM
Speed	57.3 MB/s	1.6 GB/s

Yes, according to the info I have, this is correct. 1.6 GB/s!!!!!!!!!!!

But, this is not a fair fight - the Pentium also uses cache-memory (you know.. those 256- or 512 kb you have).

Cache Speed	Pentium Computer
External Cache	70-120 MB/s
Internal Cache	200-1100 MB/s

note: Internal Cache does not tell us anything since that is how fast the CPU talks to the built-in cache in the CPU. The PowerPC-processor also has a built in cache. The size of that memory in a Pentium MMX is 32 kb.

So, the A/box:s main memory is twice as fast as the Internal Cache in a very fast Pentium CPU (200 MHz) and 14-23 times faster than those 256 or 512 kb:s. Imagine having 16 or 32 MB:s of that memory (the A\box comes with 16 MB:s).

Further, the A\box can handle up to1 GB (1024 MB) of memory. That is more than a standard PC can handle.

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Note: The only busses I mention here are the busses for expansions.

Pentium MMX computer	Phase 5 A\box
16 bit ISA PCI	16 bit DMA PCI IEEE 1394 Firewire

The Firewire-bus is the slowest bus in the A\box, but that is because it is a serial bus. It is however the very latest technology and it is expected to become one of the major busses in the future. If we look at the other busses then the 16 bit DMA is slower than the A\box PCI but it is still as fast as the Pentium PCI-bus.

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The "Caipirinha" is a wonderful piece. It runs most of the things in the computer, Graphics is no exception. The UMA (see memory) provides extremely fast memory to use with the graphics and the amount of memory to be used is only limited by the amount of main memory. The A\box has already beaten the standard Pentium when it comes to graphics but there is more.

RAW GRAPHICS POWER	PCI grafics board with 3D-blaster	Caipirinha
Memory	2 MB	More than enough
Max. Resolution	1280*1024 in 8 bpp	1600*1200 in 24 bpp
Bits internally	64	128
Bus-speed	132 MB/s	1600 MB/s

The bus-speed is very important here. In the Pentium, the graphics-board communicates with the 3D-blaster over the PCI-bus at a speed of 132 MB/s. In the A\box the 3D curcuits and the graphics-curcuits communicate with eachother inside the "Caipirinha" at 128 bits, 200 MHz. That should make 3200 MB/s!! They work internally at the same speed which makes them faster than lightning.

The PC has lately been making much progress in this field. New 3D-boards will come to replace the 3D-blaster but it will take time before that happens. There are some very cool 3D-chips coming for the PC which might be as fast as the Caipirinha internally (who knows???) but they still lack the external speed. And the DSP-RISC in the A\box which runs the 3D-graphics is programmable which makes it possible to upgrade to newer algorithms without changing any hardware. Programs may have their own specialized algorithms. There is some new technology for the PC which gives higher external speed. However, it is still far from the A\box, and it might take very long before there is something better than that for the PC. That should not be a problem in the A\box.

But it is not only in raw grafix-power that the A\box has an advantage. The A\box is also equiped with:

• Hardware MPEG-support.
• Genlock-capabel 24 bit video output (RGB, CMYK or YUV) for PAL/NTSC.
• 24 bit video output (RGB, CMYK or YUV) for HighEnd monitors.
• 2 seperate video inputs
• Hardware windows - a window can have any shape and it is independent from the background (it can have 24 bpp while the background has 8bpp etc.).
• FAME - a highly advanced blitter that can copy grafix of any shape, not just in a rectangle as before.
• Fully programmable DSP-RISC processor which handles complex calculations like 3D graphics and video compression.

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SOUND CAPABILITIES	Soundblaster 32	Caipirinha
Output	44 kHz 16 bit *2	44 kHz 16 bit *4
Input	44 kHz 16 bit *2	44 kHz 16 bit *2
Synthesis	FM	FM/AM
Wavetable	Yes	No

The A\box lacks wavetable, which is both good and bad. Without it, the gamecreators will put more effort to the music. Music through wavetable sometimes sounds really good but not always, believe me. On the other hand - a wavetable is good when you want to create music. Today, music in games most often comes directly from the CD (as samples or tracks) - for that, the A\box - with four output channels, is well suited. Professional music-creators probably do not use a computer-card wavetable. Amateurs will probably have more fun with a tracker (especially with the A\box). However, I think wavetable-cards can be expected as extras.

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All OS:s not mentioned here are considered unimportant.

The A\box will be supplied with a completely new system that will be binary-compatible with Amiga OS 3.x. Further, the system will be open for other operating systems and emulations. This mainly applies to MacOS, Unix (Linux) and X-Windows. The question is - how good will the compability be? I do not believe that X-Windows or Linux should be any problem. How about MacOS? Well, anyone who has seen "Shapeshifter" for Amiga knows that an Amiga can emulate MacOS more than well. Why should the A\box be worse? You will probably get an almost complete Macintosh when you buy the A\box (perhaps much faster than the original). My guess is that MacOS, BeOS, Unix and X-Windows will all function very well and that should be sufficient - after all, you are buying an Amiga.

A Pentium Computer offers Dos, Unix (Linux),X-Windows, Windows 95, OS/2 and some bad (compared to shapeshifter) Mac-emulators.

You can see here that the OS:s offered by the A\box are three different platforms - Amiga, Mac and Unix. The OS:s offered by a Pentium come from the PC and Unix platforms.

The new OS in the A\box is supposed the be a new Amiga OS built for this powerful computer. Phase 5 encourage Amiga-fans to give response. As the Amiga OS 3.x is still the best OS around, the new OS is made from that with response from the users and as it is made for the greatest machine around this simply must become the ultimate system (or almost).

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Phase 5 try to do the impossible when they are trying to make way for a "new" model. Macintosh and PC are both so strong that it should be impossible, but Phase 5 have a good start. First of all, they have an extremely impressive machine with an impressive system. And they already have a large devoted group (Amiga-fans). There is also already a great supply of programs (and games). Photogenics is a good example. It is just as good as Photoshop, perhaps better. Photogenics showed that even though the Amiga seemed dead, there was a bright spark of life - the users. That is why there will always be programs for the amiga.

The A\box will probably be able to use programs for Amiga, MacOS, Unix, X-windows and perhaps BeOS. That will provide you with all the programs that you need. What about games then? Most good games exist for both PC and Mac. Therefor you should have a decent supply of games. Add to that all the games that already exist for the Amiga.

Consider this. The A\box will be a machine so powerful that the games will reach a new dimension. Every game-developer wants to make the most impressive game ever made. With a PC you might get a huge number of titles to choose from. How much does that matter when the best games are made for A\box? Is quantity more important than quality? No.

This goes for both games and programs. More titles will probably be released for the PC but the A\box programs will be better.

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The Pentium computer below is my optimistic guess of what a game-PC will look like when the A\box is released. The A\box below is the standard mid-class A\box. I would buy some more memory and perhaps a faster processor (though it is not needed).

Hardware	Pentium Computer	Standard Phase 5 A\box
Processor	Pentium MMX 166 MHz	PowerPC 603e 150 MHz
Main memory	32 MB EDO	16 MB SDRAM with UMA
Grafixcard	PCI 2MB + 3D-Blaster	Caipirinha (with 3D chipset)
Soundcard	Soundblaster 32	Caipirinha
Bus-Interfaces	ISA, PCI	16 bit DMA, PCI, Firewire
Hard Disk	1,6 GB IDE	1,0 GB FastSCSI-II
Controllers	EIDE/ATAPI	FastSCSI II LCD (TFT)
Video In/Out	RGB out for High-end monitors	Two (RGB, CMYK, YUV) outputs: PAL/NTSC with genlock capability High-end monitors Two YUV 4:2:2 - inputs
Sound In/Out	44kHz 16 bit Stereo input and output	44 kHz 16 bit Stereo input 4*44 kHz 16 bit output
More hardware	CD-ROM	CD-ROM ISDN Cool Grafix Stuff

The standard A\box has everything that the PC has except for the wavetable and the huge software-market (and this may change - it has done so before). But the A\box offers so much more. The A\box has both ISDN and Genlock from start. These are both expensive devices for the PC. The most important thing which the PC lacks is probably the standardization. The Amiga has always had models which each gave some improvements.

I have seen effects on the A500 which do not work as well on my Pentium. That is Amiga Power. The secret is two things. A powerful design is the first. Standardization is the second secret. The custom chips in the Amiga provides a fairly powerful design but if the Amiga hadn't been standardized then they would have been there for little use. Programmers squized every bit of power out of these chips and made fantastic effects. The PC will never be standardized and therefor any cool chips in the PC will never show what they can truly do. When you make a program for the PC then you must provide support for many different graphics-cards, sound-cards and in the future - 3D-cards. A program that supports 5 different 3D-cards can impossibly use the cards with optimal performance. The A\box has all this from start so there is no need to support 5 cards. The program is made for the A\box and therefor it can be optimized its hardware. That does not mean that extra cards are not supported - they often are.