So basically, Ryzen is okay-ish, RISC-V and OpenPOWER are worth watching, MIPS is dying and Intel are in deep shit? Good times.
On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 12:36 AM Paul Boddie <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tuesday, 21 July 2020 03:02:14 CEST David Niklas wrote: > > On Monday, July 20, 2020, George Sokolsky <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > How people are moving forward with their computing needs? > > [...] > > > The RK3399 is a real winner of a processor, being sold on a lot of SBCs > > for as little as $50. It's getting better and better SW support as devs > > reverse engineer it's internal mali GPU and associated interconnect and > > power controls. > > These Rockchip SoCs reportedly run pretty hot, don't they? That said, I > noticed that the Raspberry Pi 4 has fan accessories available for it. So > much > for keeping up the pretense of Cambridge continuity with Acorn Computers > unless the ultimate aim is to replicate products like the (unreleased) > Acorn > Business Computer with, apparently, a very noisy fan. > > > AMDs laptop offerings are also very temping and I'm recommending them to > > normal people who want to purchase a laptop. Linux support is in great > > shape for the 4000 series AFAIK[1]. Supposedly, AMD is coming out with an > > APU even more amazing before the end of the year. > > I just upgraded my system (after fifteen years!) to one using a Ryzen > 3400G > APU (if they still call them that). However, Linux kernel compatibility is > such that I'm running a kernel from the Debian backports repository > because > system reliability with these parts was a long time coming. And you have > to > use proprietary firmware blobs because all these companies need to have > their > secret sauce. > > So, upcoming AMD products could be decent, but I would be wary about > stability > for a while after their release. Following the Linux kernel bug tracker > can be > informative: > > https://bugzilla.kernel.org/ > > Searching for "amdgpu" is probably what you want to do. For quite some > time, > people were having problems with the 3200G, and that made me worried about > the > 3400G, but it seems that even within product families there might be some > parts that are better supported than others. > > [...] > > > MIPS was looking promising until you read it's "open source" license. > > Since I've experimented with MIPS things for a while, I have to say that > the > custodianship of MIPS has been generally disappointing. > > First of all, Imagination Technologies seemed to want to either compete > head- > on with ARM by having a processor architecture and graphics technologies, > or > (when their Apple partnership collapsed) to broaden their offerings and to > use > MIPS as a vehicle into IoT and such. At that time, they had their academic > programme to try and get people to experiment with the architecture. But > RISC- > V was already on the runway at that point, so it was too little too late. > > Then, when ImgTec was acquired, MIPS got acquired and quickly passed on to > Wave Technologies (presumably making some people some quick and easy > money). > But the MIPS business seems to be in maintenance mode, at least if you > look at > their Web assets. And, of course, all the MIPS Creator stuff just fell off > the > desk. Any announcements about opening the architecture might well be > perceived > as just making some noise and keeping existing licensees on board. > > Indeed, casually following Microchip over the last couple of years or so, > I > saw it said that Microchip's acquisition of Atmel would mean that > Microchip > would probably double down on ARM and abandon new MIPS product > development. > Various pundits/punters claimed that Microchip wouldn't look twice at > RISC-V. > But then I saw this: > > "A low-cost dev kit for Microchip's PolarFire SoC, a low-power FPGA > integrated > with a hardened quad core 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor subsystem" > > https://www.crowdsupply.com/microchip/polarfire-soc-icicle-kit > > That is from the Microsemi part of Microchip's business, however, meaning > that > it is another recent acquisition: Microchip presumably buying in new > technology to remain competitive. > > Paul > > > > _______________________________________________ > arm-netbook mailing list [email protected] > http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook > Send large attachments to [email protected] _______________________________________________ arm-netbook mailing list [email protected] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to [email protected]
