Let's move the moulds!

[levi]

That sounds reasonable given the chip's not normally meant to run at >1GHz for extended periods. And Notaz is testing a bare board without any heatsink/radiator setup (though I guess I shouldn't discount cooling due to the open air - my 950odd MHz iMX6 chip idles a good 10 degrees cooler with the lid off my SBC.

But I would take any results thus far with a pinch of salt - the CPU clock governer doesn't seem to be running, which is probably why there's no thermal throtting - at present the chip just runs until it gets a core forced shutdown, even before they start the memtest with it just sitting idle.

 

[Caine]

Good to see it in a wider context, thanks. Though in the post before that Michael mentioned that the throttler was quite horrible.

Additionally, the throttler seems to be one of the worst I've ever seen...
It seems to throttle to 300MHz suddenly and stays there for a while (don't know for how long)

A good throttler would dynamically lower the CPU power to keep the heat below a certain temperature, but it shouldn't suddenly throttle to lowest CPU speed...

I guess there's work to be done here.

I mostly fear more RAM and heat related delays when I read this stuff. I suppose I should not jump to conclusions before a new official news post.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, the heatsink does make things a lot better, yes.
ptibSeb's unit was getting warm pretty quickly when compiling with 1GHz, but with the heatsink, this didn't happen anymore.

notaz' also send me this interesting statistic:

This is from a Tegra and it's for a newer revision than our Cortex A15 - but just take a look how much the power consumption (and thus heat production) increases with higher frequency!

Yes, the A15 is definitely NOT suited to run stuff for longer periods of time, it will heat up pretty quickly and eat the battery.

However, the higher speed helps with normal usage. Askarus is using the Pyra as daily system (and he doesn't have any heatsink in yet as well), and it works fine. When using the webbrowser or similar, it peaks a bit at 1,5GHz, but not that much that it heats up a lot.

This means that we should allow peaks, but for extended periods, we should basically stay at 1 GHz (dualcore)

However, don't forget: The DMIPS / MHz is of the A15 is twice as much as the A8, the RAM, GPU, etc. is faster as well, so even with 1GHz, it's a LOT more powerful compared to the Pandora (and just take a look at what the Pandora is capable).

I still plan to look for more recent SoCs as soon as the Pyra is out in the wild, and there are some interesting things happening out there. Broadcom is trying to buy Qualcomm... and they support the Raspberry Pi, so maybe it's possible getting an SoC from them.
Who knows.

But let's first get the first revision of the Pyra ready
Upgrades is something we'll do afterwards

 

[Askarus]

However, the higher speed helps with normal usage. Askarus is using the Pyra as daily system (and he doesn't have any heatsink in yet as well), and it works fine. When using the webbrowser or similar, it peaks a bit at 1,5GHz, but not that much that it heats up a lot.

That's true.

My Pyra is not doing heavy tasks mostly.
I'm using it at University for web browsing mostly as my keyboard does not work well for typing.

However, I did install ExaGear (x86 Emulator) and was downloading quite some time and did unpack larger things.
The Pyra got warm but that's it.
The system was not unusable slow and it did not get hot. Also the battery drain was OK and I had enough left after 1 1/2 hours of downloadind/installing stuff (or try to).

I can not tell much about the speed.
Wifi is slow as I'm using the old antenna.
Scrolling in Chromium is also laggy but I suspect that's because of the missing 3D driver.

I was quite busy witht University stuff the last 2-3 Weeks so I did not do much Pyra things.
I hope I will find more time the next weeks. If only the Keyboard would be better.

Anysways, my system runs stable.
Desktop usage for 3-4 hours is no problem. So don't worry.
[doublepost=1510159224,1510158731][/doublepost]BTW: I have some positive news.

It might not sound imprtant so special at first but the touchscreen works as one would expect it of a touchscreen.

That means in the file manager, PDF viewer and Chromium you can touch the screen and slide upwards and downwards like on any mobile phone.
On the Pandora it was simply a mouse and when sliding upwards in the PDF viewer it was the same as holding down the left mouse button and move the curser (It did mark text).

Unfortunately that does not work with all Apps.
FireFox, LibreOffice and Xournal don't support it.

For me scrolling is the only use case where I use the touchscreen and it feels really good. Much better than the D-Pad.

As a conclusion I'd say the touchscreen is better than expected and it is very responsive.

 

[hns]

Basically the power consumption of CMOS VLSI increases with square of voltage (internal resistors) and linear with frequency (faster charging/discharging the tiny capacitors inside all the millions of transistors), i.e. P = αCV²f (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS#Charging_and_discharging_of_load_capacitances)
And since there is dynamic power control which increases the A15 voltage almost linearly for higher clock frequencies, we get a curve growing faster (but it is NOT exponential). In my experiments 1.5 GHz appears to draw approx. 8 times the energy as 250 MHz from the battery which basically confirms these curves.
The tricks done by more recent SoC are to reduce the "C" the "V" and the "α".
The C is reduced by thinner and thinner silicon structures.
And, with smaller structures it is possible to reduce the operation voltage V (which is already as low as 0.8 .. 1.2V for the OMAP5).
The alpha factor is reduced by clever design of the digital gates so that they do switch less often and less in parallel. And by software which tries to keep the average power demand low.

 

[Caine]

This is what I love so much about this community. The technically detailed answers that you always get.

This means that we should allow peaks, but for extended periods, we should basically stay at 1 GHz (dualcore)

However, don't forget: The DMIPS / MHz is of the A15 is twice as much as the A8, the RAM, GPU, etc. is faster as well, so even with 1GHz, it's a LOT more powerful compared to the Pandora (and just take a look at what the Pandora is capable).

Yes, that is a significant increment over the Pandora. Ok, that makes it clear what to expect.

It is hard to believe that authorities will allow the merger of Broadcom and Qualcomm especially with the ongoing acquisition of NXP by Qualcomm. It would become a very big and dominant player in the market. We will see in due time.

 

[crazyhorse]

Didn't Exophase warn that 1.5ghz wouldn't be possible for any length of time about 2 years ago?

 

[Askarus]

Didn't Exophase warn that 1.5ghz wouldn't be possible for any length of time about 2 years ago?

Does anyone listen to realists?
No we follow super optimists.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Does anyone listen to realists?
No we follow super optimists.

Mind, it would surely be a fun place filled with characters like Eeyore and Marvin, would it not?

 

[Caine]

Didn't Exophase warn that 1.5ghz wouldn't be possible for any length of time about 2 years ago?

Yes, it was mentioned. I do not recall if it was Exophase, though it would not surprise me. Now after more measurements, the same seems to hold for 1.2ghz as well. So it will be running at 1ghz.

 

[JustSimon]

Unfortunately that does not work with all Apps.
FireFox, LibreOffice and Xournal don't support it.

I have the same issue with Firefox on my Laptop and found the addon Grab and Drag a few months ago, which works quite well after changing some settings.

So while it does not work natively, there are solutions for that.

 

[EvilDragon]

Mind, it would surely be a fun place filled with characters like Eeyore and Marvin, would it not?

I love Eeyore.

Yes, it was mentioned. I do not recall if it was Exophase, though it would not surprise me. Now after more measurements, the same seems to hold for 1.2ghz as well. So it will be running at 1ghz.

Not necessarily. The 1,2GHz were tested by notaz without any heatsink.
And without heatsink, even 1GHz get very warm when stressing the CPU.

 

[Caine]

Not necessarily. The 1,2GHz were tested by notaz without any heatsink.
And without heatsink, even 1GHz get very warm when stressing the CPU.

Yes well, I am a pessimist. But go ahead, prove me wrong

 

[trix]

What is the surprise? This is the expected behavior of any mobile CPU. They don't go full speed non stop without getting too hot and throttling down. This is normal.

I expect them to get the throttling worked out to be smooth and intelligent, but if you are expecting to go 1.5GHz for an hour straight, you will be disappointed. If you have that need, stay out of the mobile/handheld market, or find something with a fan.
[doublepost=1510236907,1510236703][/doublepost]Maybe a future Pyra upgrade will include a tiny fan, or maybe even some sort of miniaturized liquid cooling system. That would be sweet.

 

[Grench]

Maybe a future Pyra upgrade will include a tiny fan, or maybe even some sort of miniaturized liquid cooling system. That would be sweet.

How about a maximized liquid cooling system? Make the case bottom out of aluminum, tie it thermally to the SoC to act as a big heat sink/transport/radiator with the added advantage that it can transport heat to your hands - which gets pumped away by your circulatory system. Maximized liquid cooling.

Before the silly replies come in - not talking about 'insanely hot' here. By the time the heat would be distributed and transported to and through your skin it would max out in the 40*C range. Warm, but not going to singe or boil anything.

 

[levi]

40-49 degrees C still sounds quite hot to me, especially for a metal object which can basically pump your hands up to nearly 50 degrees in a few seconds.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

How about a maximized liquid cooling system? Make the case bottom out of aluminum, tie it thermally to the SoC to act as a big heat sink/transport/radiator with the added advantage that it can transport heat to your hands - which gets pumped away by your circulatory system. Maximized liquid cooling.

Before the silly replies come in - not talking about 'insanely hot' here. By the time the heat would be distributed and transported to and through your skin it would max out in the 40*C range. Warm, but not going to singe or boil anything.

At long last a way to maintain that beguiling sweaty hands - and no more need to worry about the battery getting the chills.

 

[crazyhorse]

What is the surprise? This is the expected behavior of any mobile CPU. They don't go full speed non stop without getting too hot and throttling down. This is normal.

I expect them to get the throttling worked out to be smooth and intelligent, but if you are expecting to go 1.5GHz for an hour straight, you will be disappointed. If you have that need, stay out of the mobile/handheld market, or find something with a fan.
[doublepost=1510236907,1510236703][/doublepost]Maybe a future Pyra upgrade will include a tiny fan, or maybe even some sort of miniaturized liquid cooling system. That would be sweet.

I used to overclock my xperia play to 1.8ghz stable.

 

[ingoreis]

I used to overclock my xperia play to 1.8ghz stable.

I still miss my XperiaPlay.

-It was tiny for my Jeans Pocket.
-the Mugen Accu Cell was realy Fine
-Good Gaming Controlls(exept the TouchNubs)
-Custom Roms worked mostly fine.

 

[Dark Pulse]

40-49 degrees C still sounds quite hot to me, especially for a metal object which can basically pump your hands up to nearly 50 degrees in a few seconds.

Where I live, where winters can be -20C with the temperature and that's before you even begin to whiff at the windchill, something that'd warm up my hands to 50C would be a godsend.

Right now, for example, a direct shot of Arctic air just hit us. By the time the sun is rising tomorrow morning... -6C, feeling like -18C due to winds from the NNW at 32 km/h gusting to 67 km/h.

Dragonbox Pyra, now with Handwarmer Function. That's worth an extra $75 at least.