SE/30 accelerators

[Blougram]

I'm thinking of boosting my SE/30 with an accelerator. That is, if I can find one for a reasonable price (which means that eBay is pretty much out of the questions). The Diimo and the Daystar cards seem to be the main options -- at least in terms of availability.

As I understand it, the Diimo 68030 connects straight to the PDS slot and does not need an adapter, whereas the Daystar 68040 needs to be fitted with an (expensive) adapter. Plus, some people seem to think that 68040 is overkill in an SE/30, and there seems to be some compatibility issues with software. What's your experience with the DayStar and the Diimo? As I understand it, one of the DayStar adapters -- the TwinSpark -- has a pass-through allowing you to use another card, but what about the Diimo cards?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

TwinSpark is a clone of a DiiMO adapter, possibly an exact duplicate.

AFAIK, there's no accelerator that plugs straight into the SE/30 PDS. Having done so makes no sense in terms of marketing. The IIci Cache Slot was by far the largest market segment, it being the de facto standard for DTP. IIRC, DayStar quickly converted production from their Socketed SE/30 version to the Universal PowerCache for all further development.

 

[Johnnya101]

I personally think it's not needed. I mean, your limited by that screen size... why get an expensive accelerator when you can get, say, a Quadra 700 that's already fast? With color?

(For the 68k40 one)

 

[joethezombie]

Well, there is the diimo030 which plugs directly into the pds slot and has a pds pass through as well.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/66071596@N00/478370007

Edit: but yes, finding them is not easy. I've not seen a diimo030 on eBay for years. I was very fortunate that a forum member was willing to sell me one. The daystar universal powercache comes up on eBay far more often, but to use it, you have to make sure you have a p33, p34, or p341 revision, AND have an adapter, which are absolutely impossible to find other than the artmix twinspark, which he has increased the price from 175 to 250 US dollars.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Well I prefer the SE/30 w/68040 and Color card over the Q700 but that's just my opinion. There's no accounting for taste. 

My Socketed 50MHz Powercache (68030) is SOOO fast. It's actually faster than the IIfx!

The SE/30 is a fantastic machine. It may take you some time before you get one but IMO it's worth the wait.

 

[joethezombie]

Im with Eagle... I have a Q700 and a IIfx, but guess what machine I'm always playing with? You guessed it, the accelerated SE/30 with video card.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I stand corrected on the direct PDS version, curious about that one.

My Socketed 50MHz Powercache (68030) is SOOO fast. It's actually faster than the IIfx!

Have you benchmarked your rig against a IIfx? It's hard to believe that the SE/30's 16MHz system bus/memory access doesn't bottleneck overall system performance for all but Cache friendly operations. Socketed or unsocketed shouldn't make a difference for anything but further expansion options on the PDS.

edit: Hate to admit it, but I'm having more fun with SE/30 expansion hacking than I've ever had with the Q700 triplets.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I'll tell ya that next Sunday. 

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I'll bet you a shiny penny that the IIfx 40MHz system clock kicks that 10MHz proc clock uptick down and then back up the block again  .  .  .  twice!

 

[BadGoldEagle]

We shall see.  What should we use for benchmarks? 7.1 or 7.5? We don't want to test Disk I/O (SCSI2SD/SCSI2CF = cheating)... We just want to test RAW computing speed. Do you have any serious Nubus Graphic cards? It's a shame the IIfx has no built in video... It would have been more accurate. Anything faster than the 8•24GC is accelerated right? My SE/30 has no working video card... I think it will definitely let me down on that point.

It might not as fast as the IIfx but as far as the power to weight ratio is concerned, I think the 50MHz SE/30 wins by a country mile 

This thread just turned into a competition LOL. 

BUT that would kinda answer Blougram's original question: Is it really worth it?

Edit: Speedometer reports the same CPU performance for the IIfx with any Nubus video card, so it doesn't matter.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Displays don't really enter into the picture. MoBo video is always faster, but at limited resolutions. One of the salient points made in every accelerator upgrade review would be the diminishing returns of going with accelerator performance vs. buying a new system with its faster bus.

My pet IIfx doesn't count, nothing beats Fast/Wide SCSI 2 in a system test.

 

[Blougram]

I couldn't agree more. The SE/30 is a thing of beauty. Guess who I'll be rooting for...

 

[Unknown_K]

I like my SE/30's just fine, but against a IIfx? HELL NO.

 

[Themk]

As much as I like the idea of SE/30 acceleration, for me personally I kind of wanted to own a Quadra. So, I bought a quadra instead of a SE/30 accelerator.

Also, to second the other people above, SE/30 with a color video card is amazing! Sure I lost the ability to stuff in an ethernet card, but I have LocalTalk to Ethernet . I am also probably going to get a SCSI to ethernet box soon, which would help speed up the network connection.

 

[Blougram]

It sure is. I used to own a RasterOps ColorBoard 264, but I've come to appreciate the compactness of the SE/30, which is why I prefer under-the-hood mods to, say, an LCD monitor.

 

[Blougram]

I've not seen a diimo030 on eBay for years. I was very fortunate that a forum member was willing to sell me one.

There were two of them on eBay a few weeks ago: one as a standalone card (sold for $170 I believe) and another installed in an SE/30 that also came with an ethernet card -- not to mention a nifty Diimo sticker. I belive that one sold for around $300.

Well, if anyone has a Diimo or Daystar and is willing to sell or trade it for some 24-bit color vibrancy (RasterOps 264) or an Asante ethernet card, let me know.

 

[Blougram]

I found a MicroMac 68030 50 MHz, and hopefully I'll get around to installing it and the adapter in my SE/30 this week. One question: I know that there is software for the card (control panel, drivers?) but is that necessary for it to function?

Very much looking forward to the speed boost; hopefully it will turn my SE/30 into a more formidable chess opponent.

 

[belgaonkar]

I was very fortunate that a forum member was willing to sell me one. 

Glad to see it works  

 

[Blougram]

I got mine to work too. I did have to install the Diimo control panel (I always assumed that it would be plug and play) but with everything up and running, the speed difference is huge -- especially when it comes to activities that are heavy on the CPU but less so on the disk. According to Speedometer 4.0, the computer (well, the CPU) is as snappy as a Quadra 605.