SoC Poll - What's most important for you?

[God Ginrai]

You're also not a fan of facts. The OMAP5 was the first SOC that ED was able to source (and he sourced it quickly after discussions with TI)..... Once the OMAP5 was secured, he was able to greenlight the project as a whole...

You're not a fan of reading. I never said anything about whether EvilDragon was able to source the OMAP5 or not. All I said was that he settled with the OMAP5 because he could not get a Samsung SoC.

The OMAP5 isn't unattractive sister you only took to the prom because you got rejected by your crush.

I never said the OMAP5 was bad. I am simply saying that the A80 is a very strong possibility that needs to be considered. You're the one throwing around accusations of vaporware and vendor lies.

-God Ginrai

 

[ShleeDragon]

Yes, I'm throwing around accusations of capitalism.  People want to sell things for profit... they might be crap even after the salesmen told you it will make your dong 20% bigger.

Spoiler

Look at the past, predict the future.

OMAP5.. TI offer good support and low failures

ALLWINNER.. crap source, low quality hardware.

Edited to make enlargement joke.

 

[Exophase]

Imo freescale i.MX 6 or marvell armada 1500 make _much_ more sense.

Much more sense than what? Allwinner A31? No one is considering Allwinner A31.

 

[EvilDragon]

Not only does he confirm right near the end (~6:35 is where it starts) that they are shipping the OptimusBoard in Q1 2014, but he also claims that they expect to have customers shipping devices with the A80 in it within the first half of this year.

At the end, when asked about if anyone could buy the OptimusBoard or only special customers, he said "We have quantities allotted for early customers, but if anyone is interested in these we're more than happy to start talking to people immediately."

He even comments ~6:30 that this will be a "dual architecture for android and other OSes". That sounds to me like Linux support could be very likely.

Also, for those wondering, he confirms that the A80 is using the PowerVR 6 series with OpenGL ES 3.0 at ~4:49.

With these specs, and this time table, I honestly believe that we couldn't have a better option for the SoC.

Well I DID contact Allwinner at the given eMail address and asked questions when it will be in mass production, what the minimum order quantity and price would be, if technical documentation will be available, et.

Basically, the reply I got was that the SoC 'might' go into production Q2/2014.

There are no technical design guides or documents or information about perf/W or power consumption available yet and they don't know when they will be.

They don't know the minimum order quantity or price yet.

They even told me the OptimusBoard was just for internal development and they had no plans yet to sell it (though that may change).

And they don't know whether Linux drivers would be available yet.

After the talk at te CES, that's a pretty disappointing response.

Either the CES was pure marketing talk (and release will still be a bit off in reality) or they're email contact team has outdated informations... which also doesn't make a good impression.

I'll try to find out more information, and of course we can always continue to follow news about the public availability of the devboard, but whatever the reply was, it was not looking that good.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

After the talk at te CES, that's a pretty disappointing response.

ED, you should know better than anyone that things are ready when they are ready :^).

 

[Natsu]

And no response from Qualcomm yet?

 

[EvilDragon]

And no response from Qualcomm yet?

Only the initial contact response, not yet with details.


But these things take a few days, so nothing special.

 

[Caine]

For me, battery life is key. It should not be worse than that of the Pandora.

Speed sacrifices are ok, but not if it drops below 10h.

If and only if the 10h is guaranteed, then I would say optimize performance per watt.

 

[EvilDragon]

After the talk at te CES, that's a pretty disappointing response.

ED, you should know better than anyone that things are ready when they are ready :^).

I know, the OMAP5 was supposed to be out in 2011


Then again, TI completely restructured the company, so that's an excuse.


But AFAIR a lot of technology is delayed a lot these days.

 

[WizardStan]

If and only if the 10h is guaranteed

10h isn't even guaranteed for the Pandora. How are you expecting it to be so for something 6 times as powerful?

 

[Caine]

10h isn't even guaranteed for the Pandora. How are you expecting it to be so for something 6 times as powerful?

I'm not, hence my vote for Battery as the most important deciding factor
All I (intended to) say is that 10h is my cut-off point beyond which I don't really care for more battery life. I did forget for a moment that we are not upgrading the battery, so indeed I should expect less than the Pandora.

 

[Klumpen]

I aggree that battery life should stay a top priority.

 

[EvilDragon]

If and only if the 10h is guaranteed

10h isn't even guaranteed for the Pandora. How are you expecting it to be so for something 6 times as powerful?

It depends what you do.

With the same speed as the Pandora, 10h should be no problem, but with fullspeed..

 

[Natsu]

^Especially if we get double the battery.

 

[PokeParadox]

I think for average use approx to 10 hours is what we sould be aiming for.

Gaming on Pandora tends to drain a lot quickly especially with more demanding emulators/games. I've seen 80% battery report 5hrs remaining shortly after running Reicast, for example.

So if we can get similar durations from the same battery, then great!

 

[Exophase]

I know, the OMAP5 was supposed to be out in 2011

Then again, TI completely restructured the company, so that's an excuse.

It was announced in 2011, they never said they'd release it by then. Even ARM said Cortex-A15 wouldn't be out in anything until 2013, although they later revised that to late 2012 (which is what happened with Exynos 5250). I remember MWeston talking about being able to release a device with it in summer 2012 and I found that estimation extremely optimistic. But I still expected something with OMAP5 by late 2012 or early 2013, and I think TI's comments went along with that.

But AFAIR a lot of technology is delayed a lot these days.

Inability to release new products rapidly and on time is probably a big reason why TI and Freescale can't support the big mobile markets anymore. In addition to not really having anything special like in-house CPU or GPU or their own leading edge fabs. I remember TI complained about TSMC, the relationship between both may have been immature due to not having fabbed with them for that long.. they even said they'd prefer to use UMC for 28nm which probably few others are doing.. who knows how much delay this added..

It's sink or swim for Allwinner, they won't last if they can't keep up.

 

[WizardStan]

So perhaps the A80, even if it were to be available in a couple months, is still a bit too risky?

 

[God Ginrai]

Well I DID contact Allwinner at the given eMail address and asked questions when it will be in mass production, what the minimum order quantity and price would be, if technical documentation will be available, et.

Basically, the reply I got was that the SoC 'might' go into production Q2/2014.

There are no technical design guides or documents or information about perf/W or power consumption available yet and they don't know when they will be.

They don't know the minimum order quantity or price yet.

They even told me the OptimusBoard was just for internal development and they had no plans yet to sell it (though that may change).

And they don't know whether Linux drivers would be available yet.

After the talk at te CES, that's a pretty disappointing response.

Either the CES was pure marketing talk (and release will still be a bit off in reality) or they're email contact team has outdated informations... which also doesn't make a good impression.

 Honestly, that does sound to me more like the email contact team has outdated information. The availability information that the CES rep gave was consistent with the leaked AllWinner roadmap from before.

I'll try to find out more information, and of course we can always continue to follow news about the public availability of the devboard, but whatever the reply was, it was not looking that good.

That's all I ask.

So perhaps the A80, even if it were to be available in a couple months, is still a bit too risky?

If the design documents don't exist, then possibly. But otherwise, if it is available in a couple of months, and there are design documents, I don't see why you would think it is a risk. I think we should do what EvilDragon just said he would do: Try to find out more information and follow news about public availability of the devboard and the chip.

-God Ginrai

 

[EvilDragon]

I know, the OMAP5 was supposed to be out in 2011

Then again, TI completely restructured the company, so that's an excuse.

It was announced in 2011, they never said they'd release it by then. Even ARM said Cortex-A15 wouldn't be out in anything until 2013, although they later revised that to late 2012 (which is what happened with Exynos 5250). I remember MWeston talking about being able to release a device with it in summer 2012 and I found that estimation extremely optimistic. But I still expected something with OMAP5 by late 2012 or early 2013, and I think TI's comments went along with that.

Well, they announced it in 2011 and samples should be delivered within the same year, with final products expected in the shelfs Q2/2012:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/ti-announces-omap-5-two-high-performance-and-two-low-power-core/

That's what I meant with that

It's sink or swim for Allwinner, they won't last if they can't keep up.

Yes, and that might be a reason to have pushed the A80 on CES even if it was not 100% ready.

They'll probably put all their ressources into it now, and maybe huge companies wanting to buy millions of them get other responses than I do...

 

[hns]

What's his actual name again? I guess he isn't actually a gta04 which has become sentient

(Dr.) Nikolaus Schaller

http://www.pyra-handheld.com/team.html