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Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#131

Post by jenscow »

escap wrote: post #128
Al__Dante wrote: post #126

It's a 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU. ARM7, it's official: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/

"For the last six months [ RPi team has ] been working closely with Microsoft to bring the forthcoming Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi 2. Microsoft will have much more to share over the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 2-compatible version of Windows 10 will be available free of charge to makers. Visit WindowsOnDevices.com today to join the Windows Developer Program for IoT and receive updates as they become available." ht…

I wonder if Microsoft have helped in making the PI capable of running Windows 10, for the same price.

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#132

Post by zumtar »

Interesting to see a Broadcom logo and chip markings visible on the CPU now.

Love 'em or hate 'em, I suspect Broadcom are very happy about this as those chip markings are prime marketing real estate.

Considering the phenomenal success of the previous Raspberry Pi units this probably formed part of the negotiations for the CPU price.

There are of course other considerations such as trace lengths and availability of packages for both the CPU and LPDDR2 but that logo being directly in the hands of the engineers of tomorrow makes a big difference.

The previous models used a PoP (Package-on-Package) stack of the CPU and SDRAM and now they've moved to discrete SoC and DDR2 packages (with the DDR2 chip now on the underside of the PCB).

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#133

Post by bohol »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
greyfade wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not, but it's been common practice in their industry for decades, and it's generally seen as beneficial to OEMs and users to have access to datasheets before purchase. This is why it's also commonplace for most chip manufacturers to offer free samples, even of chips upwards of $20 list price. Most of them even publish enough information to develop hardware and software to interact with these chips even withou…

Ok. I find it rather rude to call a company 'assholes' for doing something that is 100% within their rights. They're releasing a chip that powers a relatively cheap fairly powerful computer, have supported the effort in as many ways as they could without giving up their competitive edge (when you're in a leadship position it is sometimes quite risky to open up too far), nobody forces anybody to buy the product and la…

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure what a disassembler has to do with datasheets?

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#134

Post by pjc50 »

zumtar wrote: post #132

Interesting to see a Broadcom logo and chip markings visible on the CPU now. Love 'em or hate 'em, I suspect Broadcom are very happy about this as those chip markings are prime marketing real estate. Considering the phenomenal success of the previous Raspberry Pi units this probably formed part of the negotiations for the CPU price. There are of course other considerations such as trace lengths and availability of pa…

One of the announcement posts said "this Broadcom chip will be available for sale subject to meeting MOQ". So I'm expecting someone will do a kickstarter to buy 10k of them and reship them as singles. No longer doing POP moves it from "nope" territory into something the average small assembly house should be able to cope with. Not that you need to do this given that the compute module exists, but I'm sure someone will want to do it.

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#135

Post by pjc50 »

userbinator wrote: post #125
jvdh wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is feasible to release a similarly priced, similarly capable device with completely open hardware? The RPi has sold immensely to home users, but also in education. The foundation is also open to criticism and has shown in the past that they are willing to change their production when given the opportunity. They have moved most of their production to the UK for example, whereas the first boards were al…

As much as they are "open to criticism", I very strongly doubt that they are going to use anything other than Broadcom. Do you think it is feasible to release a similarly priced, similarly capable device with completely open hardware? https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... Certainly not as widely known as the RPi, but I'd attribute that more to a general lack of marketing/"presence" in educat…

That doesn't meet the (absurdly high) openness standard of "RTL of the processor" mentioned by throwaway000002.

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#137

Post by wolfgke »

userbinator wrote: post #125
jvdh wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is feasible to release a similarly priced, similarly capable device with completely open hardware? The RPi has sold immensely to home users, but also in education. The foundation is also open to criticism and has shown in the past that they are willing to change their production when given the opportunity. They have moved most of their production to the UK for example, whereas the first boards were al…

As much as they are "open to criticism", I very strongly doubt that they are going to use anything other than Broadcom. Do you think it is feasible to release a similarly priced, similarly capable device with completely open hardware? https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... Certainly not as widely known as the RPi, but I'd attribute that more to a general lack of marketing/"presence" in educat…

"... and dual-core Mali 400 GPU"

Do you really claim that the Mali 400 GPU is more open than the VideoCore IV?

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#138

Post by pjc50 »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #104
tbrock wrote: post #72

Why would anyone buy this over the much more powerful ARMv7 odroid-C1 for $35 that has been out for months now?

The Raspberry Pi is a platform optimized for and bundled with its community. The Raspberry Foundation can produce/license any conceivable number of these devices at the same price point. The difference of for example $35 vs $70 doesn't matter very much for individual buyers. It does matter when dealing with educational budgets and a desire for predictable spending. Even when a school/hobbyist course requires students…

You've got it exactly. The whole thing is modeled on the original BBC computer learning project of 30 years ago. The physical Pi device is just a platform for the delivery of educational material. People miss this because most of the commentators here don't need the educational material as they're not schoolkids or educators.

The Foundation is doing this in a highly vertically integrated way because it gives them predictability and a guarantee that the hardware meets the educational needs and also the "marketing" needs of turning kids into enthusiasts. That's why Minecraft for the Pi is important, for example.

Re: Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

#139

Post by rys »

arbuge wrote: post #16
schappim wrote: post #4

What's the same: - Same form factor as the model B+ (your enclosures and daughter boards should still fit). - Same full size HDMI port - Same 10/100 Ethernet port - Same CSI camera port and DSI display ports - Same micro USB power supply connection What has changed: - A new turbocharged Broadcom BCM2836 900MHz quad-core system-on-chip with performance at least 6x that of the B+. - 1GB of RAM Source: http://raspberry.…

Under the "Same" column, it looks like you need to add "Same price - $35". I stocked up on B+s over Christmas - oh well... The "at least 6x" performance claim should be "at least 3x" by the way, and even that is an estimate, not a guarantee. The 3x is on a single thread comparison, the 6x is on a somewhat synthetic multicore benchmark test.

The Cortex-A7 is also faster per-core, per-clock than the old ARM11 processor, and the clock is higher. So with 4x the amount of cores, some multiplier for the per-core, per-clock stats, and 1.28x the clock, 6x makes some (marketing) sense.
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