SoC Poll - What's most important for you?

[EvilDragon]

Apparently, if you haven't been hiding under a rock and followed the boards during the last few days, you will have seen that there's been a lot of discussion going on about which SoC to choose.

It's not a question that can be replied to within a couple of hours or even days, as there's a lot of stuff that needs to be evaluated and tested...

The fastest SoC might not be the best in regards of power usage, or it might have closed source-drivers.
Or the design documentation could be lacking, the price too high and so on.

We need to find out all these things for all the SoCs, and in the end it will be me who has to choose the best one.

However, you can help - by letting us know with this poll what's most important for you.

These SoCs might be usable by us:

• OMAP5 (what we're using as devboard right now)
• Snapdragon (need to wait for offers from Qualcomm to know which ones we can get)
• Allwinner A80 (need to contact Allwinner for that one)
• Intel BayTrail (available from normal distributors)

The first three are all ARM ones, so there will be difference in power usage, speed, GPU and drivers.

The last one is x86, which is completely different from ARM.

ARM stuff can't natively run on x86 and vice versa.

Here's a quick information about what ARM and x86 would give us as Pros and Cons:

ARM:

• ARM is what the Pandora is using (compatibility)
• Up until now, ARM was mostly being used in mobile devices, x86 in Desktop computers. Compared to desktop computers, ARM was always slower and programs especially for ARM (Android games, Emulators etc.) are most probably more optimized than the x86-Versions (i.e. we could not use PCSX ReARMed anymore, only normal PCSX)
• Mostly all Android systems are still using ARM SoCs - all these games should be possible on the Pyra as well.
• Android games optimized for small screens

x86:

• Compatible to normal desktop PCs: Native Linux games (without sourcecode released) should work out of the box.
• Not compatible with Pandora or GP2X Games.
• With Wine (or maybe even some Windows installation (not officially supported), Windows games and programs should work
• x86 games are usually optimized for computer monitors, not small screens
• about 95% of Android software runs out of the box (according to Intel). We don't know the details, but probably all the software that is NOT using ARM compiled code will work (my guess is that more complex stuff like better games use ARM compiled code)
• Some core devs of the Pandora (like notaz) will not do much for the Pyra anymore - it MIGHT be we'll get a lot more new devs (but this can't be said for sure)

For more information, please read up this thread... there's a LOT of discussion going on - and give your vote, so I know what's best!

 

[Linux-SWAT]

What's the good answer for question 2 if i want the OMAP5432 ? :^)

 

[EvilDragon]

What's the good answer for question 2 if i want the OMAP5432 ? :^)

That would probably be 2, as all drivers are OpenSource except for the 3D SGX (though the kernel part is open, so it doesn't prevent us from upgrading the system)

 

[slaeshjag]

Now that you've already made an announcment for OMAP5, I'll ragequit if you change your mind. The projects I've already started on that are unlikely to be usable on a pandora, are not for moving targets

 

[Linux-SWAT]

What's the good answer for question 2 if i want the OMAP5432 ? :^)

That would probably be 2, as all drivers are OpenSource except for the 3D SGX (though the kernel part is open, so it doesn't prevent us from upgrading the system)

Sounds like a firmware blob.

If it leads to the less headache solution, and less volcanoes eruptions, i can take that.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

My two cent choices.

1: balanced power/battery

    I can swap batteries so no need infinite credits, but I don't want to swap every hour ^^.

2: balanced open source

    Of course i prefer full OSS, but Pandora's OMAP3 has proven reliable and powerful. I'll close my eyes on one non-OSS blob to keep this confidence.

3: ARM

    If I want a x86, i'll buy a notebook.

4: CPU architecture

    Same as above. The Pandora was my very first ARM machine and I found this architecture amazing and very promising.

Note that i have nothing against another ARM manufacturer.

 

[Linopoly]

Regarding battery life, I would guess that performance per Watt is the most important metric to focus on when evaluating SoCs. However, based on what I know as a systems programmer, I'd say that the performance side of things is hard to measure for general scenarios like this. It's easier if you have a specific workload to benchmark, but even then, there could also be a tradeoff between hardware that is better for existing software, and hardware that outperforms, but only for software that has been optimized in some specific way. Either way, performance per Watt is far more important than performance alone.

My apologies if I'm stating the obvious, but the poll was a little bit vague on this point, and I just wanted to make sure. I'm excited that Pyra development is happening! I'd much rather redeem my Pandora pre-order on a Pyra discount than get a Pandora in 2014.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Not sure if I should say this but this poll should only allow people to vote but not provide comments as this will create another "SoC: Back and Forth" thread I'm afraid.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Is baytrail x86 the most open source option , particularly for the GPU as other have mentioned?

If so, this should be noted as a PRO in the 1st post

 

[Natsu]

I'll follow your lead.

My two cent choices.
 
1: balanced power/battery
    I want as much power as possible with reasonable battery life.
 
2: balanced open source
    I voted this, but shifting between this and as long as it works. I don't know the whole deal about the Snapdragon and Allwinner A80 and

    I do prefer updates. 
 
3: ARM
    While I didn't have a Pandora, I'll hate to see the compatibility broken and to miss out on the Snapdragon 805 or Allwinner A80 if it is actually possible to

    get (Sorry, x86 fans. ), but I'll take it if it is chosen.

   
4: CPU 

    I don't want something weaker just because not everything is open and/or it's a different architecture. At same time, I don't want something that dies

   in just few seconds. :lol:
 

 

[Neelix]

Not sure if I should say this but this poll should only allow people to vote but not provide comments as this will create another "SoC: Back and Forth" thread I'm afraid.

I doubt it,  but if it came to that I'm sure hailrazer would be willing to move all offending content to the other thread

- Neelix

 

[slaeshjag]

Fine. Okay. After a discussion with Exo, maybe I don't mind the A80 as an option to the OMAP5. But that depends on how simlar they really turn out to be

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Not sure if I should say this but this poll should only allow people to vote but not provide comments as this will create another "SoC: Back and Forth" thread I'm afraid.

Lets count on mods to move "bad" posts to this other thread.

 

[Exophase]

Well, uninterestingly, I voted with the majority. Although actually I was the first voter, so maybe the majority voted with me

Balanced: Going with the metric of aiming for similar to Pandora power consumption when running Pandora-like loads but offering much more peak single threaded performance and at least 2 cores.

As good as possible: With so few options for open source drivers this is sort of moot, but they do have their advantages.

I'd like to stick with ARM: There's a lot of traditional attachment to ARM and at least some software that would benefit from staying with it, as well as first day compatibility. But of all the answers this one has the lowest preference for me.

CPU/battery is most important.

Is baytrail x86 the most open source option , particularly for the GPU as other have mentioned?

If so, this should be noted as a PRO in the 1st post

The pros/cons are for x86 vs ARM, not anything else about these SoCs.

 

[vcoleiro1]

People made a big point of the baytrail x86 SOC being the most open source.  Since this is one of the key points raised in the comparison and poll, and that PROS  and CONS were given for x86, surely this should have been mentioned (if its true)

I understand that baytrail does not constittue all x86, but when its the only one in discussion.

 

[WizardStan]

Since this is one of the key points raised in the comparison and poll, and that PROS  and CONS were given for x86, surely this should have been mentioned

There is a question specifically about whether open source drivers are important or not. This should be kept distinct from the pros and cons of x86 vs ARM themselves.Voting for x86 simply because it has the most open drivers defeats the purpose of the question of architecture. If open source drivers are that important then you can vote for that to be the most important and still choose ARM as a preferred architecture.

 

[vcoleiro1]

Its relevant when no open source ARM SOCs have been identified as an option in the same way as whats been said of the Baytrail.  But, Ive said enough. I'll leave it to ED either way.

 

[Natsu]

I like how the one person who voted for power changed/deleted his or her vote.   :lol:

*At the time of posting, of course.

 

[God Ginrai]

I agree with Shenmue, this poll thread should be locked. We already have 2 separate topics where SoC discussion is taking place, we don't need this to become a third one.

-God Ginrai

 

[Natsu]

I disagree. It's at least nice to see their reasoning on this specifically.