Athlon Geodes enter the embedded market

[Yousuf Khan]

First bunch of Geodes with Athlon K7 cores in them. AMD also introduces a
new rating system for them where they compare their performance and power
against VIA Centaur processors. This is the first time that AMD is admitting
to comparing its processors against another company's processors. Possibly
setting up for a performance battle in settop boxes and handhelds.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7590630230.html

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tony Hill]

First bunch of Geodes with Athlon K7 cores in them. AMD also introduces a
new rating system for them where they compare their performance and power
against VIA Centaur processors. This is the first time that AMD is admitting
to comparing its processors against another company's processors. Possibly
setting up for a performance battle in settop boxes and handhelds.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7590630230.html

Yup, chips look basically like they're just an "Ultra Low Voltage"
AthlonXP-M, to use Intel's name for them. Nice looking little chips,
9W TDP at 1.0GHz and it should smack VIA and Transmeta's chips all
around the room in terms of performance. The C3 and Crusoe/Efficeon
still have a slight edge in terms of power consumption, but we're only
talking about a couple of watts now (9W vs. 7W).

As for the performance numbers, they are all referenced against a VIA
C3 533MHz processor, ie a performance rating of "1000" offers roughly
twice the performance of the 533MHz C3. It does not necessarily mean
that a processor with a rating of 1000 will perform the same as a VIA
C3 with a rating of 1000 though.

 

[RusH]

Yup, chips look basically like they're just an "Ultra Low Voltage"
AthlonXP-M, to use Intel's name for them. Nice looking little
chips, 9W TDP at 1.0GHz and it should smack VIA and Transmeta's
chips all around the room in terms of performance. The C3 and
Crusoe/Efficeon still have a slight edge in terms of power
consumption, but we're only talking about a couple of watts now (9W
vs. 7W).

yadayada
processors are cheap, but the boards I saw were 500-600$ :/

Pozdrawiam.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Yup, chips look basically like they're just an "Ultra Low Voltage"
AthlonXP-M, to use Intel's name for them. Nice looking little chips,
9W TDP at 1.0GHz and it should smack VIA and Transmeta's chips all
around the room in terms of performance. The C3 and Crusoe/Efficeon
still have a slight edge in terms of power consumption, but we're only
talking about a couple of watts now (9W vs. 7W).

Actually, according to this article, the Geode NX is based on Athlon
classic, not Athlon XP or Duron. So that would mean no SSE capabilities, for
example.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1599384,00.asp

They've also moved away from the System On a Chip philosophy of Geode GX.
The NX seems to be just a traditional standalone embedded processor.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Sander Vesik]

First bunch of Geodes with Athlon K7 cores in them. AMD also introduces a
new rating system for them where they compare their performance and power
against VIA Centaur processors. This is the first time that AMD is admitting
to comparing its processors against another company's processors. Possibly

Huh? This is not so at all. AMD has used comparison style ratings before,
the latest (but not at all the only) of which are the Athlon XP numbers.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Huh? This is not so at all. AMD has used comparison style ratings
before, the latest (but not at all the only) of which are the Athlon
XP numbers.

We're talking about embedded processors here, not desktop.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tony Hill]

yadayada
processors are cheap, but the boards I saw were 500-600$ :/

Huh? Which boards were these? For the new Geode NX chips? There are
no boards for these chips, though there's no good reason for them to
be expensive since they're electrically identical to AthlonXP boards,
just switching from a socket to a solder pad (which should make the
boards cheaper). The Geode GX chips don't really sell with
motherboards, they're really only marketed towards OEMs that are
looking to make set-top boxes and the like. Similar deal with the
Transmeta chips, though they're mainly sold to laptop makers. VIA C3
chips have dirt-cheap motherboards.

So just where were you seeing $500-$600 boards?

 

[Tony Hill]

Actually, according to this article, the Geode NX is based on Athlon
classic, not Athlon XP or Duron. So that would mean no SSE capabilities, for
example.

Note that they don't say it's based on the "Athlon classic", just that
it's based on the "Athlon core". It most definitely is actually just
an AthlonXP-M core, and it does support SSE as per AMD's own
documentation available here:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/31351a-nx1500@6w_pb.pdf

They've also moved away from the System On a Chip philosophy of Geode GX.
The NX seems to be just a traditional standalone embedded processor.

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed when I saw that. I think a highly
integrated chip would be rather interesting, though I think the K8
would be a better core to base it around. The K8 already has an
integrated memory controller and a good low power/low pin count I/O
connector to the outside world. Just throw a simple video controller
and audio processor onto the die and you'd be off to the races.

Of course, right now the K8 die is already over 100M transistors, so
it would have to go through a bit of a diet before this sort of thing
would be an option. Still, rip out all but 256K of cache and it might
be an option.

 

[Ketil Malde]

So just where were you seeing $500-$600 boards?

The development boards, mentioned at the cited URL
(http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7590630230.html)?

-kzm

 

[RusH]

Huh? Which boards were these?

Geode GX DB533 Geode NX DB1500

For the new Geode NX chips? There are
no boards for these chips

and the one above is .. ?

though there's no good reason for them to
be expensive since they're electrically identical to AthlonXP boards,
just switching from a socket to a solder pad (which should make the
boards cheaper). The Geode GX chips don't really sell with
motherboards, they're really only marketed towards OEMs that are
looking to make set-top boxes and the like. Similar deal with the
Transmeta chips, though they're mainly sold to laptop makers. VIA C3
chips have dirt-cheap motherboards.

So just where were you seeing $500-$600 boards?

quantity 10 000 :

Geode GX [email protected] - $26.50
Geode GX [email protected] - $29.10
Geode GX [email protected] - $32.75
Geode NX 1500@6W - $65.00
Geode NX 1750@14W - $55.00
Geode GX DB533 - $650.00
Geode NX DB1500 - $500.00

source : Digit-Life

Maybe they are a development boards, the prices would be ok then.

Pozdrawiam.

 

[Tony Hill]

The development boards, mentioned at the cited URL
(http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7590630230.html)?

Ahh, well no wonder they're expensive! They're development boards!
That's actually quite a cheap price for a development board, most of
the fairly complex ones are up in the $1000+ range.

 

[Rui Pedro Mendes Salgueiro]

The Geode GX chips don't really sell with
motherboards, they're really only marketed towards OEMs that are
looking to make set-top boxes and the like.

Any hope of someone selling a silent PC using one of these ?
1 GHz might be enough for reasonable performance and I suppose 9W is
low enough that convection cooling might be sufficient. Of course,
there is still the fan on the power supply, and noise from the hard
disk and DVD player, so "standard parts" and "silent" might not be
compatible.

 

[RusH]

Any hope of someone selling a silent PC using one of these ?
1 GHz might be enough for reasonable performance and I suppose 9W is
low enough that convection cooling might be sufficient. Of course,
there is still the fan on the power supply, and noise from the hard
disk and DVD player, so "standard parts" and "silent" might not be
compatible.

Buy a laptop and forget about computer.

Pozdrawiam.