Phase5 Expands PowerUp Product Line

phase 5 digital products expands the PowerUp product line 

Oberursel, Germany, May 12 1997: phase 5 digital products today announced
the expansion of the PowerUp product family for Amiga computers.  Beside
the two products that had been announced earlier, the Cyberstorm PPC and
the Blizzard 603e Power Board, there will be an additional model for the
A12000, the Blizzard 603e+ Power Board, which combines the PowerPC RISC
processor with an 68040 or 68060 CPU, as well as a model for the Amiga
1500/2000, the Blizzard 2604 Power Board.  Additionally, it has been
decided that all PowerUp boards will come with SCSI on board instead of
being an option, which adds additional value to these products. 

With this expanded product line, phase 5 digital products offers a complete
line of PowerUp accelerators for the Amiga 1200, 1500/2000, 3000 and 4000
models, and provides a smooth upgrade path for owners of 68030-, 68040- or
68060-based accelerators.  Additionally, phase 5 will release a fast
graphics card as an add-on to those PowerUp models that go into the desktop
and tower models, namely the Cyberstorm PPC and the Blizzard 2604 Power
Board.  The 1997 PowerUp accelerator product line includes the follwoing
models:

Cyberstorm PPC
--------------

The Cyberstorm PPC accelerator is the high-end PowerUp accelerator for
Amiga 3000/4000(T) systems and systems with a compatible processor slot.
It features a high-performance PowerPC604e RISC processor in different
clock speeds and a socket for either a 68040 or a 68060 processor, a memory
expansion option for up to 128 MByte of ultra-fast 64-bit memory, a
Wide-Ultra-SCSI controller on board and an expansion slot for
high-performance expansions such as the CyberVisionPPC (see below).  This
board is ideally suited for all A3000/A4000 users who already own an
accelerator with either a 68040 or 68060 processor; for Cyberstorm users it
will be the PowerUp upgrade offer.

Blizzard 603e Power Board
-------------------------

The Blizzard 603e Power Board is the inexpensive PowerUp accelerator for
Amiga 1200 systems.  It features a high-performance PowerPC603e RISC
processor @ 175 MHz clock speed and a socket for a 68030 companion
processor @ 50 MHz, a memory expansion option for up to 64 MByte of
high-speed memory, and a Fast-SCSI-II controller on board.  This board is
ideally suited for all A1200 users who already own an accelerator with a
socketed 68030 processor; for Blizzard 1230-II, Blizzard 1230-III and
Blizzard 1230-IV users it will be the PowerUp upgrade offer.

Blizzard 603e+ Power Board
--------------------------

The Blizzard 603e+ Power Board is the high-end PowerUp accelerator for
Amiga 1200 systems.  It features a high-performance PowerPC603e RISC
processor @ 200 MHz clock speed and a socket for a 68040 or 68060 companion
processor, a memory expansion option for up to 64 MByte of high-speed
memory, and a Fast-SCSI-II controller on board.  This board will be ideally
suited for all A1200 users who already own an accelerator with a 68040 or
68060 processor; for Blizzard 1240T/ERC and Blizzard 1260 users it will be
the PowerUp upgrade offer.

Blizzard 2604e Power Board
--------------------------

The Blizzard 2604e Power Board is the high-end PowerUp accelerator for
Amiga 2000 (in the UK Amiga 1500) systems.  It features a high-performance
PowerPC604e RISC processor and a socket for either a 68040 or a 68060
companion processor, a memory expansion option for up to 128 MByte of
ultra-fast 64-bit memory, a Wide-Ultra-SCSI controller on board and an
expansion slot for high-performance expansions such as the CyberVisionPPC
(see below).  This board is ideally suited for all A1500/A2000 users who
already own an accelerator with either a 68040 or 68060 processor; for
Blizzard 2040/2060 users it will be the PowerUp upgrade offer.

Quick Table:

        CyberStorm PPC    Blizzard 603e    Blizzard 603e+    Blizzard 2604
        --------------    -------------    --------------    -------------

CPU:    PowerPC 604e      PowerPC 603e     PowerPC 603e      PowerPC604e
        150-200 MHz       175 MHz          200 MHz           150-200 MHz

0x0 CPU:68040/60          68030            68040/60          68040/60
        25-50 MHz         50 MHz           25-50 MHz         25-50 MHz

Amigas: A3000/4000(T)     A1200            A1200             A2000

Out:    June 97           June 97          July 97           August 97

Price:  150 MHz: $709     $429             $599              150 MHz: $739
        180 MHz: $849                                        180 MHz: $879
        200 MHz: $969                                        200 MHz: $999

PowerUP 150 MHz: $669     $399             $529              150 MHz: $699
Upgrade 180 MHz: $769                                        180 MHz: $799
Price:  200 MHz: $869                                        200 MHz: $899

(Prices listed in US$.  Prices are without the required 68040 or 68060
chip.)


CyberVisionPPC - A high-end graphic card for use with the Cyberstorm PPC
and the Blizzard 2604 Power Board

The CyberVisionPPC is a high-performance graphic card which can be
installed on the expansion slot of the PowerPC604e-based PowerUp
Accelerators, the Cyberstorm PPC and the Blizzard 2604 Power Board.  It is
scheduled for delivery in August, and will become available simultaneously
with the Blizzard 2604 Power Board.   Especially for the Blizzard 2604 the
use of the CyberVisionPPC is highly recommended as the slow access to the
ECS chip memory or Zorro-II-based graphics boards in the A1500/A2000 may
limit the system performance in applications with lots of graphic output;
but also the performance of the Cyberstorm PPC will benefit significantly
from the data transfer rates of up to 100 MB/s (from the processor into the
video memory) in demanding applications such as fast 3D visualization and
similar tasks.

Not only the ultra-fast access of the processor into the video memory, but
also the internal speed and functionality of the CyberVisionPPC will
provide a breathtaking performance.  The CyberVisionPPC is equipped with
the powerful PERMEDIA graphics controller, which provides an outstanding 3D
performance of up to 42 million textured 3D pixels per second, with
hardware-accelerated rendering functions such as z-buffering,
gouraud-shading, fogging, blending and anti-aliasing.  As the design of the
PERMEDIA hardware suits perfectly for OpenGL implementations, it's 3D
performance can support the CyberGL functionality of CyberGraphX V3 Native
which comes along with the PowerUp boards.  In combination with the high
floating-point performance of the PowerPC604e processor a breathtaking
performance in professional 3D applications can be achieved by this
implementation.  Additionally, the PERMEDIA processor supports functions
like color space conversion, chroma keying and XY-scaling which will be
used by the software MPEG decoding routines of CyberGraphX V3 Native.

The CyberVisionPPC used 64-bit wide SGRAM with a data transfer rate of up
to 660 MB/s; this in combination with the fast RAM-DAC allows display
resolutions of up to 1280x1024 pixel in true color mode and with a high
refresh rate of at least 70 Hz.  The boards comes along with 4 MB of
display memory as standard.

The recommended price for the CyberVisionPPC will be at US$299.00;
customers of a PowerUp upgrade can buy this board for a special rate of 
US$239.00.

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