A1222 For real??

[amiadudeorwat]

I'm curious how the A1222 FPU issue turned out, whether it means everything needed recompiling or they got around it with kernel tricks.  Assuming it isn't too bad, I would have bought one by now.

[amiadudeorwat]

Do you mean if it was available you would have already bought it?

Yes possibly, depending on price and whether the discussion about whether the FPU issue was actually a big problem, meaning big compatibility problems or terrible performance.  There was a lot of talk about this when it was announced and I haven't heard much more about it since.

[amiadudeorwat]

Unless a solution is implemented in the OS, software packages using floating point instructions will either have to be recompiled or they will fail to work.
Emulating the instruction with code based on the alternate fpu is not that big a deal, but trapping and translation IS.
At least initially, I don't anticipate that this will be a particularly efficient process, so we are likely to see specific binaries being compiled for the A1222.

And this is not THAT big a deal, but it IS a PITA.

This was more what I was wondering about.  If software still runs but it's just theoretically slower than it otherwise would be then that's ok-assuming it's not horribly slow.  But if everything needed recompiling then that's a big problem and I might not be interested.  I wasn't looking for benchmarks necessarily.

[amiadudeorwat]

What is the reason for going with the P1022 which has the E500v2 core in the first place, just price?  Is it that big of a deal to switch to one of the other QorIQ chips with the E500mc core or just too expensive which would negate the low price target of this board?

[amiadudeorwat]

If you want e500mc core than you must go to quad core P3041 or P2040. There are no dual core e500mc CPUs. Another "advantage" of P1022 is that it has integrated sound card into the SoC. Otherwise you have to add PCIe slots on the board or integrate sound chip on the motherboard which will result with more complexity and development cost of the board. If you add PCIe slots then you cannot have mini-ITX format of the motherboard any more.

All above can increase cost of the board and then it will not be "low cost" any more. There are for sure other factors that will influence the cost that we do not know about. If I remember correctly the mentioned price for motherboard was 400 EUR.

Only the price change for CPU from P1022 to P3041 will cost more than 100 EUR more for the motherboard itself without anything else.

P1022 = 1000 @ US$54.29 each

P3041 = 1000 @ US$181.70 each

And all of this because of problem that we still do not know if will affect performance in a real world applications. In fact P1022 have double precision FPU integrated. In this kind of "low cost" product everything counts! Maybe next mid level cost product will have more powerful CPU.

Unfortunately "T" series of CPUs was not available for delivery at the time when design was started.

-Dooz

Thanks that does explain things a bit better, I didn't know about the integrated audio codec.  The P2040 at 1.2GHz is about double the price around $125 plus they would have to do something about audio, pushing up the final price up at least another 100.

We'll see how the performance and compatibility are when the NDA is lifted.

[amiadudeorwat]

I investigated how much will *really* cost to buy those CPUs in high volume:

P1022 @ 1.2 GHz ($88.30)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p1022nse2mhb/nxp-semiconductors

P2041 @ 1.5 GHz ($214.06)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p2041nsn7pnc/nxp-semiconductors

P2041 @ 1.2 GHz ($182.22)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p2041nsn7mmc/nxp-semiconductors

P3041 @ 1.5 GHz ($256.03)
https://www.arrow.com/en/products/p3041nse7pnc/nxp-semiconductors

Yes, obviously it is not possible to have $182 CPU in 400 EUR A1222. Maybe a little bit cheaper if you order 1000 units but those are approx. prices. As a user I understand that some people would like something like P3041 @ 1.5 GHz but that is not possible for A1222 type of price range in a given moment when A1222 was designed.

-Dooz

I'm not disagreeing with you but I was referring to this P2040 here at $126 for 60.  It could be the wrong package type or any other thing wrong plus the lack of audio as mentioned.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/nxp-usa-inc/P2040NSE7HLC/P2040NSE7HLC-ND/5155398

[amiadudeorwat]

Thankfully Hyperion don't share your typically American consumerist view.

Hyperion is releasing AmigaOS 4.1 for Apple G4 laptops?