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Author Topic: A-EON Technology & Ultra Varisys sign $1.2M agreement for new PowerPC hardware  (Read 9521 times)

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Offline WolfToTheMoon

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Quote from: TCMSLP;750657
It's great news;  Significant new investment, new hardware and continued development in OS4.

Clock speeds are largely irrelevent.  A modern 2GHz CPU is going to do a lot more per cycle than a 2GHz CPU from 8 years ago.  It looks like the P5020 has only been available since late 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QorIQ#P5

I'd be interested in seeing some real performance figures.

Either way, this is all good news for OS4.

Unfortunately, the QorIQ P5 is not a modern desktop CPU speed-wise.
Based on the MIPS rating, it's about as fast an an Athlon FX-57 from 2005, but it still lacks a dedicated SIMD unit(it's got no Altivec)
 

Offline Madshib

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PowerPC is more relevant now than ever. All the next gen gaming consoles run PowerPC an and the chip is rock solid.
 

Offline nicholas

Quote from: Madshib;750665
PowerPC is more relevant now than ever. All the next gen gaming consoles run PowerPC an and the chip is rock solid.

No they don't. The PS4, the Xbox One and the Steam Boxes all use x86-64 CPU's.

The only console that uses a PPC variant is the Wii U and that's a POS compared to the others.
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Offline bitman

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Current "next gen" (PS3 and Xbox 360) uses PPC. But iirc next "next gen" (PS4 and Xbox one) uses an AMD chip which is not PPC
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Offline nicholas

Quote from: bitman;750667
Current "next gen" (PS3 and Xbox 360) uses PPC. But iirc next "next gen" (PS4 and Xbox one) uses an AMD chip which is not PPC

That would be "current gen" for PS3/360 and well, "next gen" for the next generation.

When the next generation go on sale they will become "current gen" and the PS3/360 will become the "previous gen".
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Offline yssing

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I really don't see how some users can see this as a bad thing.

Look Trevor Dickinson Clearly knows what he is doing, he is a "business angel" and have been for many years, so I guess he knows how and where to invest.
 

Offline Madshib

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Quote from: nicholas;750670
That would be "current gen" for PS3/360 and well, "next gen" for the next generation.

When the next generation go on sale they will become "current gen" and the PS3/360 will become the "previous gen".

Clarification noted, thanks :)
« Last Edit: October 21, 2013, 03:18:14 PM by Madshib »
 

Offline EDanaII

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@ yssing

It's a bad thing for some because the price to performance ratio sux for these machines. I am making an assumption here, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if these new boards were at least as expensive as the X1000 boards.

In order for the Amiga market to really benefit, we need machine in the ~300 USD range. That's including OS. My humble opinion, of course.
Ed.
 

Offline TCMSLP

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I figure the consoles are going x86 to reduce development costs.  Most game performance nowadays seems more dependent on GPU acceleration than raw CPU compute power.   Even the physics calculations now seem to be living in the GPU.

Plus, for most users CPUs are now largely irrelevent anyway.  I spent about 6 months using an eeePC laptop (Atom powered) connected to a 21" monitor and keyboard;  it was only on the very rare occasion I'd do something CPU intensive that I'd remember it was a piece of crap netbook.

The P5020 is a recent design CPU; for most tasks it will probably be overkill.   For CPU intensive tasks (for example 3D rendering) it may not be as great as the latest x86 but then when you're talking 10 hour render times, a ~25% difference isn't such a huge deal.   Plus, much of this is moving to the GPU too (CUDA, OpenCL, Cycles render engine).

I guess my point is - the CPU is a significant (?) step up from the PA6T, it provides a future roadmap and will probably cost less than the X1000.  Comparing a new gen Amiga to a PC or games console is pointless.

My main concerns revolve around the SMP kernel, how much software will break as a consequence and how stable/usable the OS will be as a daily use desktop.   Most of the apps I use are open source and AFAIK lack any native Amiga equivelents.  I could get by using X (if stable?) but OS4 deserves to be more than a dumb X terminal.

I hope with further development of both the hardware and OS, software development will follow.
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Offline TCMSLP

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Quote from: EDanaII;750679
@ yssing
we need machine in the ~300 USD range. That's including OS.


Quite - I think for a lot of people (myself included) the laptop was a cheap way to adopt the platform.

Once on the OS4 train, it would be much easier to justify an upgrade, too.
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Offline nicholas

Quote from: Madshib;750678
Clarification noted, thanks :)

You're welcome. :)
“Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.” - Imam Ayatollah Sayyed  Ruhollah Khomeini
 

Offline WolfToTheMoon

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Quote from: TCMSLP;750680

The P5020 is a recent design CPU; for most tasks it will probably be overkill.   For CPU intensive tasks (for example 3D rendering) it may not be as great as the latest x86 but then when you're talking 10 hour render times, a ~25% difference isn't such a huge deal.   Plus, much of this is moving to the GPU too (CUDA, OpenCL, Cycles render engine).


it's not 25%... its more like 500% compared to modern midclass x86.
Also, there is no SIMD so it would be even slower in compared to AVX optimized x86 CPUs that have up-to 256-bit wide vector units.

Quote
I guess my point is - the CPU is a significant (?) step up from the PA6T, it provides a future roadmap and will probably cost less than the X1000.  Comparing a new gen Amiga to a PC or games console is pointless..


It's about 20-30% faster than PA6T, but uses more power. Also, PA6T has Altivec.
 

Offline Bennymee

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Quote from: EDanaII;750679
@ yssing

It's a bad thing for some because the price to performance ratio sux for these machines. I am making an assumption here, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if these new boards were at least as expensive as the X1000 boards.

In order for the Amiga market to really benefit, we need machine in the ~300 USD range. That's including OS. My humble opinion, of course.


I doubt a custom x86 board would be cheaper.

What is the price of the P5020 cpu ?
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Offline nicholas

Quote from: Bennymee;750705
I doubt a custom x86 board would be cheaper.

What is the price of the P5020 cpu ?

Why would an x86 board have to be custom?

The whole point of even considering porting the OS to x86 is because the boards are not custom, therefore the bang to buck ratio is much better than any custom board could ever be.
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Offline vox

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Quote from: EDanaII;750679
@ yssing

It's a bad thing for some because the price to performance ratio sux for these machines. I am making an assumption here, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if these new boards were at least as expensive as the X1000 boards.

In order for the Amiga market to really benefit, we need machine in the ~300 USD range. That's including OS. My humble opinion, of course.

That is SAM 440 board.

It looks monsterous expensive, but please point me out to any other dual core PPC board anywhere in the world?

It can only be compared to its relatives, other OS4 systems, and I find X1000 good performance/ratio + expandability and features when compared to SAM 460 system.

X2000 would cost about the same (could be less expensive because CPU is, but I believe AEON wants a bit more profit margin since low volumes production is expensive) and better models will surely be more expensive then X1000 currently is.
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Offline vox

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Re: A-EON Technology & Ultra Varisys sign $1.2M agreement for new PowerPC hardware
« Reply #29 from previous page: October 21, 2013, 06:10:29 PM »
Quote from: WolfToTheMoon;750689
it's not 25%... its more like 500% compared to modern midclass x86.
Also, there is no SIMD so it would be even slower in compared to AVX optimized x86 CPUs that have up-to 256-bit wide vector units.
Quote

You forgot to say which are produced in volumes of 100 000 models.  

But please point out any dual core PPC consumer board currently on sale to individuals and not military or sever type. That is the "same class"
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