@KimmoK

If the chip is sampling in Q3 2013, you won't be seeing dev boards (in the field) until early 2014, at best. Late 2014 is more realistic.

Lack of 3D is probably gonna hurt you, and 8 SERDES lanes really is a couple short.

I'm not a fan of the T1040

There is doc for the T4240, but this smaller line of chips is too far off yet.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Went over that whole thread again, I firmly believe that most of our current problems (video and picture decoding) can easily be solved by multithreading (that's how GPU assisted routines work anyway, by parallellization of each macro block ) on SMP systems, so I think the way forward is clear:

more cores, less cash. P2041 is my target for now, while I know someone here wants to rather focus on the T4240. For graphics: good old PCIe.

Someone please make some usb-audio drivers as well

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

This hypervisor stuff is interesting. Would be useful.

_________________
Rock lobster bit me. My Workbench has always preferences. X1000 + AmigaOS4.1 FE
"Anyone can build a fast CPU. The trick is to build a fast system." -Seymour Cray

@Tomppeli

Yes, Microsoft has pretty detailed document about how it works, in there Hyper-V implementation.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768520%28v=bts.10%29.aspx

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http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@NutsAboutAmiga

The Freescale version is slightly different, but the idea is similar.

But now I'm slightly disappointed.

The P204x SATA ports take up 4 serdes lanes (as in, if C and D are SATA, A and B cannot be used for anything).

This means either PCIe x2, PCIe x4, SATA or PCIe x2, PCIe x4, PCIe x4. And only 2 GbE ports.

If I could have my way I would request PCIe x2,PCIe x4,PCIe x1,SGMII,2xSATA instead of PCIe x2,PCIe x4,2x n/c,2x SATA

So it sounds like we need to hook it up to an SB600/700/whatever like on the X1000. Luckily this isn't very hard or very expensive (and it has advantages such as sound and more USB as well as SATA, but it does raise both complexity and cost.

I really didn't want that.

Freescale, thanks for NOTHING, MAN!

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

I don't know, maybe x1,x1,x2,GbE,GbE,SATA,SATA is a better combo even if it means only a x2 for PCIe graphics?

We're talking MONTHS of development and about 100 dollars difference in cost compared to the x2,x4,SB600 version.

Edit1: Not cost, price. The cost would be about 30 dollar, but obviously one would need to have a markup to be able to sell with warranty.

Edit2: Had a look at the P3041RM also, it's not much better. x4, x4, x1, debug, x1, GbE, GbE, GbE, SATA, SATA (plus another two non-serdes GbE ports) is the best we could do with that family. Not that this is necessarily hopeless for a 5Gbps PCIe system, but it's a few more GbE than is strictly necessary unless you wanna have a beowulf cluster of these buggers

Last edited by olegil on 21-Nov-2012 at 01:34 PM.
Last edited by olegil on 21-Nov-2012 at 12:52 PM.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

What do you think about 10Gbit ethernet?

If the soc has it, should it be available to user?
Would it give "coolness" factor to have 10Gbit on desktop device?
(so far I have not seen any ... perhaps there still are some heavy HW issues on mainstream 10Gbit chips???)

Last edited by KimmoK on 21-Nov-2012 at 01:33 PM.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

10GbE is very cool indeed (and not very hard to do, as it's mostly 2.5Gbps, only between the XAUI PHY and the SFP+/XFP will there be actual 10Gbps signals).

Unfortunately it takes up 4 SERDESes, but you could have a P3041 with 2x x4 PCIe, debug, XAUI and 2x SATA. And two more GbE ports from the RGMII ports.

Not a bad idea at all, honestly. I would say that makes more sense than 3 extra SGMII ports If it didn't cut out the 2 x1 PCIe...

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Unfortunately the P4080 was "pin compatible" in the broadest sense of the word. The only two sensible SERDES config options for P3041 are illegal for P4080

Possible to solve with external muxes but still mighty annoying.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@KimmoK

Not to be negative again, but I think the current TCP/IP stack (Roadshow) can't max out the hardware at 1Gbps Ethernet cards.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 21-Nov-2012 at 11:27 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 21-Nov-2012 at 11:27 PM.

_________________
http://lifeofliveforit.blogspot.no/
Facebook::LiveForIt Software for AmigaOS

@NutsAboutAmiga

In that case it needs to be THROWN OUT.

In any case, the P2041 upwards have some very interesting hardware that needs the TCP/IP stack to be rewritten anyway to take advantage of them. It can basically receive a transfer over ethernet and write it into DDR3 with 0 CPU cycles used. That is NOT the norm on other platforms

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

"Someone please make some usb-audio drivers as well"

To my understanding Radeon HD cards (that have HDMI?) have high quality Audio chip/core on board. I think it would be pretty ideal to get audio out from minimalistic PPC system that has only one PCIe and no audio on board.

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

didn't think of that. That's pretty awesome if it's correct. Anyone KNOW?

Edit: I think it's correct. Roll out a bounty for a driver?

Last edited by olegil on 22-Nov-2012 at 10:23 AM.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@KimmoK

pcmcia is pretty much dead. the spec body in charge of it dissolved and gave expresscard spec to usb sig. expresscard2 is current, but somewhat harder to find than expresscard was a few years ago in laptops.

_________________
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@billt

Ok... thanks.
Nothing is simple it seems... if one day I have working design to use, then need to see where it fits and hor relevant it would be.

/me goes to read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK

expresscard is just a single lane PCIe and a USB. Unfortunately you need to be able to act as a device instead of a host on both ports. Not sure I see the point.

What would be really awesome for us is if there was an industry standard for laptop parts just like there is for desktops. Surely we are approaching the technological level where the mechanical solution of a laptop doesn't need to be changed for each and every model.

However, making a small desktop board based around an SoC is a lot easier.

To fit in a mini-ITX formfactor you could have graphics on a PCIe while the other PCIe are routed to miniPCIe ports. That would be pretty cute. If we could find a way to make the graphics card an MXM it would be rather awesomely cute.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@KimmoK

btw, from what I remember, EC2.0 can have USB 480Mbps and EITHER PCIe 5Gbps OR USB 5Gbps.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Have made the symbols and the footprint for the P204(0|1), the escape routing is proving trickier than I expected on 6 layers. Really wish they had made that one 1mm pitch. Freescale seem to be making all the wrong decisions when it comes to packaging lately (I really didn't like the T4240 at all, it just uses too many layers).

I'm looking at 2x mPCIe (without the USB) and a x2 PCIe for graphics (in a x16 slot). And an SODIMM for DDR3, but nothings really set in stone yet. Not that I have the financial backing to hire Hyperion anyway.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

actually this should be the other way around, they should hire you.

@wawa

Well, be that as it may, I have fun doing the electronics (unfortunately, only the first 50% or so are fun, the rest are just tedious ).

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.