Is an Amiga 4000 worth buying?

[Isopropyl]

Hi to all,

First time poster here, go easy on me because I think this question might border on sacrilegious for some

I own an Amiga 1200, but I recently saw an Amiga 4000 /30 Desktop for sale on my local Amiga buy&Sell group. It has a low end video card and minimal RAM and that's it. He's asking €1200.

I was tempted to make an offer, but I want to get a read on peoples mind regarding the A4000. My understanding of the A1200 is that with an accelerator in it the A1200 can run most (if not all) games, MOD's, and most applications. So is there anything to merit the A4000 beyond the 'cool factor' of having one? Am I being a bit too dismissive of the 4000, and if so, in what way?

Any guidance would be appreciated as these rarer Amigas are not my strong suit

Thanks

Iso

[McTrinsic]

Hi Iso,

that sounds like a quite legit question, especially if you have a 1200 already.

Besides the moral dilemma that you can’t have too many Amigas, that is .

The A4000 is on paper mich better expandable. A prime example is the ZZ9000 video card including the ZZ9000ax audio expansion.

In practice, there are more elements of ‚daily drivers‘ available for the A1200: turbocards (accelerators). There seem to be much more available for the A1200 trapdoor. For the A4k, you get other REALLY expensive old ones or the BFG9060 via AmiBay.

General expansions are a bit easier for the A4k, such as mass storage, soundcards, GFX boards, LAN, USB, …

Personally, I found it more appropriate to have one system in hardware that I spend time with as a nice hobby. Other systems or setups I would emulate.

Unless you have a particular usecase.

[stevelord]

I own an A4000/040 with a 68060 at 100Mhz. It's the machine I lusted after as a kid. My dream machine. It can be a little temperamental sometimes. I do a lot with it but not as often as I'd like. I love having a 4000 because teenage me dreamt of having one. It's my Porsche 911 Turbo.

Being my Porsche 911 Turbo I've spent an unholy amount of money upgrading this thing and keeping it not only alive but viable in the 2020s. It has a 100Mhz 68060, can run at full HD with 16-bit sound, Ethernet, USB, all sorts. It has nearly half a gig of RAM, and close to half a terabyte of storage. For an Amiga it's absolutely insanely powerful while having "real" hardware.

But if it's not your dream machine, your 911 Turbo, is it worth getting one? Most likely not. There's no app out there that isn't faster being emulated. It's slower than an A500 with a pistorm, or an A1200 with a pistorm32. This means that it's probably cheaper to upgrade your A1200 than an A4000. Nothing is stopping your A1200 from going into a tower, getting a nice graphics card, USB, Ethernet, and an 060 or Pistorm32 with some extra memory.

1200 Euro isn't a bad price, but it's an 030 with minimal RAM. If you want to take it on and spend the time upgrading it, expect to budget around 2000 Euro-ish on a FastATA + CF, ZZ9000, BFG9060 and rev6 68060 CPU. 3000 Euro will get you a lot more for the A1200.

[A1-X1000]

I'm biased as I love my Amiga 4000 but it's the ultimate Amiga big box wise for expandability and after my Amiga 1000 is the most used Amiga in my mancave ..well at least for 68k miggies as I use my AmigaONE X1000 running OS4.1 for my daily driver when I'm home