Will 2GB Pyra have half the memory bandwidth?


Exophase

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This has been discussed a lot in various threads by several people, and I talked to notaz who said he'd talk to ED, but as far as I know ED hasn't commented on it. So I thought I'd ask in a thread here.

The concern is that if Pyra is moving to either 2x1GB or 4x1GB chips it'll mean that the 2GB solution only has a 32-bit bus, halving bandwidth vs the original 4x512MB setup or the new 4x1GB one. This could hurt performance for some applications and most likely the GPU performance would be hit the hardest of anything.

It's possible that the new 1GB chips use a 32-bit bus, but I doubt it because it'd mean a new CPU board is necessary to accommodate this. And the 4x1GB version would have to use multiple chip-select lines (assuming it's even available on OMAP5).

Could we get a confirmation on this matter? Thanks.
 
From the looks of it, it might not even be worth the effort of producing the 2GB version. Pretty much everyone who can afford a pyra at the current price can afford the 4GB version.
 
Well, seeing how few 2GB orders we have, we might simply 512MB chips for sample price.
Would that increase the cost much on your end? Are you planning on continuing to offer the 2GB version in the future? Could you place a "sample" order to get a US cellular module? (I think I recall you saying you could get them individually, but the number of orders for it are now a bit higher, yet not high enough to justify a full order of 500.) Would you be willing to get the X instead of the US module? (Supposedly they both would work for most of the stuff used by 2 of the big companies, but the X would work with the largest one, although we don't know if they, or one of the small companies that piggyback on their network, would allow us to use the Pyra, and if so it may be data only.)

Sorry for the off topic questions. They seemed related in my head.
 
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Well, seeing how few 2GB orders we have, we might simply 512MB chips for sample price.
I think you accidentally a word there. :p
"might simply what 512MB"? From context I'm guessing you're saying you can get a few dozen 512MB chips as samples for the very few that requested them, and then drop the 2GB version after, yeah?
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Would you be willing to get the X instead of the US module?
The -X version may not have voice capabilities. There is literally no technical documentation to be found about it anywhere.
 
The -X version may not have voice capabilities. There is literally no technical documentation to be found about it anywhere.
Well, shit. I would like Verizon customers to be able to use the Pyra on that network, but not if it removes the possibility of voice and such. I thought when you guys were explaining it to me it was said that it was the same as the US one, but added support for Verizon freqs and whatnot. Perhaps I assumed that meant it had the same capabilities, and that the V or whatever was the data only version.

What I want to know is if there is a possibility of a US 4G version (with data and messaging in addition to data) even if we don't get the numbers needed.
 
Well, seeing how few 2GB orders we have, we might simply 512MB chips for sample price.

Why don't you axe the 2GB options. Surely there is no point having to cater for three 2GB options in the process line when almost no one is buying them. Especially when you start adding color, it's going to get ridiculous catering for all the combinations.

Time to axe those options IMO. Bring it down to the three 4GB options

For the twelve people that ordered a 2GB model so far, offer them an at part cost increase upgrade to 4GB or free upgrade if your feeling generous. I know some of these people have already said they were contemplating upgrading to 4GB since everyone else went for 4GB.
 
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OH! I GET IT!
I just figured out why the -X version is vaguely listed as not having voice capability. The PLS8 doesn't support VoLTE, voice over LTE. Which is fine because most carriers don't support VoLTE either yet. Instead, it switches to 3G (or less) when making/receiving a voice call. That's pretty normal stuff.
Verizon was CDMA before LTE, the PLS8 cannot support CDMA, therefore it cannot simply switch down to 3G to make the call. Literally the only thing it would be able to do on the Verizon network is data over LTE.
It's possible that it might still support voice for all the regular GSM carriers that were nominally supported on the -US version, but if Verizon specifically commissioned the -X version that feature may also have been stripped out to save costs and then used in data-only sticks.
In either case, the -X would definitely not have voice capabilities for Verizon.
 
Could you place a "sample" order to get a US cellular module? (I think I recall you saying you could get them individually, but the number of orders for it are now a bit higher, yet not high enough to justify a full order of 500.)

Woah wait, hey @EvilDragon can you do that? :O
 
Well, seeing how few 2GB orders we have, we might simply 512MB chips for sample price.

Why don't you axe the 2GB options. Surely there is no point having to cater for three 2GB options in the process line when almost no one is buying them. Especially when you start adding color, it's going to get ridiculous catering for all the combinations.

Not only would it create more combinations in the shop, but also doubles number of configurations to maintain hardware + software + support side. If it was 40%/60% why not, but for a dozen people only is it worth the extra effort to:
  • Answer potential buyers the difference in the units, why 2GB is good enough, ...
  • Check upon repair which type of RAM is installed & have spares at hand (maybe irrelevant, I don't know)
  • Explain on the forums why some apps won't run well/at all on their unit, when most people report it works like a charm
  • Get two production lines (?)
  • Help devs optimise their apps to work on a 2GB machine because they use just too much memory (probably seldom, but might happen)
And probably more, for 30 x 12 = 360€. I personally don't see the benefit of this (but I must say I haven't pre-ordered yet). Oh, and let's not forget this quote:

Still it's enough to make the kernel maintainer's life miserable as it's creating another hardware variation of Pyra.

I just hope it won't be me this time...
 
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