

Raspberry Pi's GPU double the performance of iPhone 4S - indy
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-raspberry-pi-gpu-outperforms-iphone-4s

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andyzaharia
Not really embarrassing, no one is comparing the power consumption. Apple
could easily go to a more powerful GPU if their battery power allowed them.
But I think the current 4S GPU is the one that fits for the current battery
technology.

~~~
jules
I wonder when mobile devices are going to contain FPGAs. They are often a
factor of 100x power/performance better than CPUs/GPUs.

~~~
theatrus2
FPGAs are typically 5-20x worse in power consumption and max speed over a
dedicated ASIC with the same logic. That is the price you pay for flexibility
of being able to change your design at the drop of a hat.

For now, they are the low volume option (<1-10m units) if you need special
interfaces. If all you are doing is number crunching a Gpgu would likely be a
more effective option.

~~~
jules
While superb for power and performance, the problem with ASICs is that you
can't embed an ASIC fab in your mobile phone ;) On the other hand, doing
number crunching on a GPU will quickly burn your your battery. FPGAs seem like
the ideal middle ground.

~~~
theatrus2
Yes and no. I would say that GPUs are the middle ground between traditional
serial CPUs and truly parallel FPGAs.

FPGAs are not a silver bullet. If you can express your design using a GPGPU
instruction set, then by all means please use that. Its going to be more
efficient by an order of magnitude, from power consumption and especially
cost.

High end FPGAs can easily run in the $30k for a single unit range (this is
what NVidia is going to buy to simulate their latest design in hardware, its
not likely going to end up in a shipping product). They are also relative
power hogs. Their strength lies in highly concurrent systems, especially
around data streaming from disparate interfaces to other interfaces, when you
can't put enough I/O bandwidth into an existing processing solution.

GPUs are good at processing and will floor an FPGA there. They are relatively
terrible at I/O.

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omgtehlion
A sentence «and should double iPhone 4S performance across a range of content»
is a really authoritative benchmark I suppose...

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modeless
Wow, that makes this thing a lot more interesting to me, if true. So many
designs these days pair monster CPUs with underpowered GPUs it's almost
embarrassing (especially as Apple continues to show that powerful GPUs are
important for a good user experience). The 256 MB of RAM will be very
constraining for any app trying to use all that power, though.

~~~
NickPollard
The PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of RAM and seems to do ok, as games like
Uncharted and God of War show.

It does mean you'll need to be more careful and considerate of how you use
that memory though (and admittedly, on a console like a PS3 the OS takes up
much, much less space).

~~~
jharsman
The PS3 has 256 MB system RAM and 256 MB dedicated video RAM. So it has twice
as much RAM as the Raspberry Pi.

~~~
NickPollard
I'm aware of that, does the Raspberry Pi not have separate video ram? If not,
that is my mistake - I didn't look closely and made an assumption. If it has a
shared block of RAM (like the Xbox 360 Xenon, which has 512mb shared) then
that is a significant difference - but still plenty to work wonders with.

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st3fan
But does the Raspberry Pi run on a battery?

The iPhone is highly optimized for mobile use. Both in hardware and software.
Can the same be said about this chipset that the Raspberry Pi uses?

If not then the comparison is not very fair.

~~~
OhArgh
yea according to their site you can run it on 4 AA cells. Can you buy an
IPhone for $25? <http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs>

~~~
st3fan
That is pretty cool. You can't buy an iPhone for $25 but you also cannot buy a
Raspberry Pi for $25 that has WiFi, 3G, BlueTooth a display, 64GB of flash and
512MB of memory :-)

Anyway, I look really forward getting my hands on an RP.

~~~
OhArgh
Yea I was looking at the video of it running XBMC. Thinking of running it as a
media center

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robot
The ARM11 cpu is too old, I wish they used at least a Cortex-A8. ARM11 has a
virtually addressed cache with aliasing issues that requires all sorts of
hacks in linux kernel, it will require old compiler flags and lacks other
ARMv7 features. It's the cpu from 2005. I wonder what the price difference
would be if they used an A8.

~~~
voodoomagicman
There are some similar cool open hardware projects sponsored by TI. They have
better specs, although their prices are quite a bit higher. I don't know if it
is because they do lower volumes, the chips cost more, or price just wasn't as
much a concern when they were designed.

The beagleboard-xm has an A8, 4 usb ports, and 512 ram for $150, the related
beaglebone has arduino like pins and an A8 for $80, and the pandaboard has an
A9, 1gb ram, and wifi for $180.

~~~
Metapony
Thanks, didn't know about these.

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tuxguy
#education

I am interested to know what other folks think of the potential to build low
cost PCs using Raspberry Pi (RPi) for education in India & the developing
world.

I am curious to know what other people think of OLPC XO3 vs RPi vs Aakash (the
Indian govt.'s low cost tablet)

OLPC <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8428147.stm>
[http://asia.cnet.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-olpc-
xo-3-0-...](http://asia.cnet.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-olpc-
xo-3-0-tablet-62213156.htm)

Aakash Ubislate7 [http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/08/the-inside-
story-o...](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/08/the-inside-story-of-
indias-50-computer-tablet/)

1\. Raspberry Pi(RPi) requires monitor + mouse +k/b while XO3 is self-
contained. 2\. RPi is more geared to be a lab machine or a home pc while XO3
is more of a personal device.

3\. From a pedagogical viewpoint, IMHO, i think younger kids should not have a
digital device 24x7 as they could possibly get "addicted" to it . It is more
important to impart a sense of curiosity(scientific temper) & hunger for
learning, & having an XO3 might hamper kids' social activities - going
outdoors & playing with other kids, being fit, taking part in sports.

So i feel younger kids could be exposed to low-cost computers( made of a RPi)
in school, which are low cost & encourage tinkering (open source, simple
inexpensive hw) while older (say high school kids can get their own personal
XO3.

#4. From an Indian perspective, i wish the Indian govt scraps the crappy
Aakash tablet in favour of the XO3.

[http://phonemantra.com/2012/01/olpc-india-head-rips-into-
aak...](http://phonemantra.com/2012/01/olpc-india-head-rips-into-aakash-calls-
it-pre-beta-and-questions-its-indian-ness/)

The vast majority of schools in India are run by the govt & most govt. schools
dont have a computer lab or the computers:students ratio is abysmal. The RPi
could be an excellent, low-cost way to create computer labs in all govt
schools, colleges & vocational institutions.

#5. Internet connectivity

<http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml>
<http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs> <http://www.akashtablet.com/>

The XO3 comes with 802.11b/g & most importantly 802.11s(mesh networking) & the
concept of school servers, so kids can download learning content even if
access to the larger public Internet is not available.

Aakash has GPRS( much slower) & RPi supports wired ethernet & USB WiFi
dongles.

Exciting times ahead for sure & would love to hear what other folks think

cheers

p.s. Detailed interview with Eben Upton, RPi's executive director (free
registration required)

[http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-
inside-...](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-
raspberry-pi)

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jrockway
This is just a linkbait title. "XXX compared to YYY Apple product" is a
guaranteed click. Too bad they don't actually compare XXX to YYY...

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felixfurtak
shame the BCM2835 won't be open sourced anytime soon...

~~~
thristian
So far as I can tell, this significantly limits the hack value of the
Raspberry Pi. Sure, it runs Linux... whatever version was current when it
first shipped. Considering Ubuntu and Fedora both ship new releases every six
months, a year and a half or two years into the future and what you can do
with the Raspberry Pi will be limited to what outdated binary packages you can
find, or what software you're prepared to compile yourself on a tiny embedded
processor.

I guess $25 isn't exactly a high price to pay for six months to a year of
messing about, but it seems a sad fate for an otherwise remarkable piece of
hardware.

~~~
rcxdude
I think you are too pessimistic on it's lifetime. Firstly, the foundation will
likely continue to update the software. Most of the patches they made to the
kernel are going to be submitted upstream. Even if the foundation doesn't do
it, it can be maintained by the community. It's not infeasible to maintain a
fork, although the work will increase with time. Even if it becomes stuck on
an older kernel version, it's still not very difficult to run a distribution
on top of that, since the userspace-kernel interface is very stable.

~~~
sern
The community can't maintain the patches, thanks to Broadcom's policy of not
releasing documentation unless you commit to ordering a hundred trillion parts
or are employed by them (as the Raspberry Pi folks are).

If the point of this thing is to promote computer science education, then it's
already dead. Remember, not everything happens in userspace. For example,
there are advanced operating systems courses out there that are focused very
closely on the low-level side or are based on non-GPL-compatible operating
systems where they can't simply lift stuff out of Linux.

It's nobody's loss but Broadcom's: the educators will go for platforms like
BeagleBone instead (which, although more than double the price, is still
cheap), the students will have the benefit of well-documented hardware, and TI
will be happy that many of those students who grow up to work in the embedded
space will be specifying TI (rather than Broadcom) SoCs.

~~~
NickPollard
Whilst I would certainly agree it would be nice for the chip to be open-
sourced, saying that it means the Pi is 'already dead' is ridiculous
hyperbole.

The Raspberry Pi _is_ designed for computer science education, but it's
designed primarily for _Children_ , not University Students. If you're at the
point of running 'Advanced Operating Systems' courses then you can find
whatever you need, but 12 year olds aren't likely to be doing that.

What they folks at Rasberry Pi are trying to do is encourage people _who've
never coded before_ to start writing programs. If they can write simple
userspace linux programs (I'm talking text adventures and the like) that's
what's important. The device isn't intended to replace ultra-hackable low
level devices, it's just a cheap PC that children can tinker with without
their parents yelling at them if they break the family PC.

The Rasberry Pi is _anything_ but dead.

~~~
sern
They absolutely don't need special hardware to start programming.

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that my first exposure to coding was when I
typed "10 PRINT BUTT 20 GOTO 10" into BBC BASIC. I didn't need anything more
than the computer I had at school. The modern-day equivalent - typing "python"
into the terminal - isn't much different, and still a lot easier and cheaper
than getting something to run on an external Linux board.

~~~
luser001
This _IS_ today's version of the BBC Micro. AFAIK, the BBC Micro was a cheap
design to encourage computer education since regular PCs were very expensive.

I too cut my teeth on a BBC Micro. My school had ~20 of them. If they'd bought
PCs, they would have had maybe 5?

The Raspberry Pi will do the same thing today, especially in poor countries
which don't have computers as a matter of course in their schools.

You're talking from an overly Western-centric perspective when you say that
typing "python" is cheaper than the RPI.

The world has 7 billion people, many of whom live in poor countries. At $35
with the ability to use a regular TV as a console, this thing is well within
the reach of poor person even in a poor country like India to buy as a splurge
for his kid who he's told my their teacher is bright.

I, for one, think this is going to be revolutionary.

PS: I also plan to use it for some home automation projects. It can run off of
batteries (!!!!!), and is a plain old GNU/Linux distro. How cool is that.

~~~
sern
The BBC Micro was actually quite expensive compared to the other micros of the
time. (I don't think the IBM PC was ever considered a "micro", and other
micros were probably more capable anyway.) If I remember correctly, the goal
was not to produce a design that would compete mostly on cost but rather one
that was British and would do the flashy stuff the BBC wanted to show on their
computing series.

I agree that the Raspberry Pi will be revolutionary, not because it will
rejuvenate computer science teaching, but simply rather because it's a cheap
computer.

~~~
luser001
> I agree that the Raspberry Pi will be revolutionary, not because it will
> rejuvenate computer science teaching, but simply rather because it's a cheap
> computer.

Yep. It looks we were mostly in agreement then! :)

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fierarul
I don't care about the GPU, but I'm glad to see XBMC running on the thing.

Next up, I want to see some Ubuntu Pi edition, and perhaps even some ChromeOS
fork.

My hope is to be able to attach that to the back of a monitor/TV and get a
usable browsing and movie watching machine.

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lbotos
Does anyone know if Raspberry Pi has an education / grant program? I'd like to
present this to my high school (Small alternative Technical School) and I'm
sure they'd love a curriculum that they could review.

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joezydeco
Little confused here. Has the Pi project changed from "low-cost education
computer for the masses" into "iOS-killing mobile game platform"?

~~~
Ecio78
I suspect this[x] is just a way to bring attention to the Broadcom chip that
powers the RPi

[x] i mean the article, not the Pi project itself

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kevingadd
Does the iPhone 4S actually use a Tegra 2? Everything I've read indicated it
used a PowerVR GPU, just like every other iPhone, not a Tegra 2. The article
seems fundamentally misguided and incorrect if this is the case.

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-
ben...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-
benchmarks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2) says SGX543MP2.

~~~
nextparadigms
Why do you think the author says iPhone 4S uses a Tegra 2? He doesn't say
that.

I'm curious, though, is it really a fully open source computer? How does that
work when it uses an ARM chip? Or does the open source part refer only to the
OS? As soon as ARM replaces ARM11 with Cortex A7 or whatever, we should ask
them to open source ARM11.

~~~
noonespecial
I'd say its more closed source than open. The schematic is not released, the
chip is a Broadcom ARM (not even for sale to the public), the GPU runs a
binary closed blob. Even the boot sequence involves closed source binary
"magic".

It runs linux. That's open. The rest, not so much. Its still awesome. It just
is what it is.

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spobo
It can decode and output a 1080p signal. What more do you need from a GPU? :)

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falling
Did anybody read the article? There is no demo or measurement, the
manufacturer is promising, in an interview, that the SoC _should_ perform like
that.

Also, it's pretty confusing, mixing statements about Tegra 2 and iPhone 4S,
which are quite different beasts.

It would certainly be impressive, but I'd rather wait for at least a demo, if
not proper benchmarks, before throwing the party.

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nirvana
It seems to me that they're comparing a USB powered device to a battery
powered device.

The iPhone runs its GPU in a particular way, and its GPU was chosen based on
the fact that the iPhone needs to have its battery last all day.

However the Raspberry can draw a continuous 1A without rest, because it
effectively has an infinite battery.

So, sure, you can put a larger GPU in a device like that.

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EvilLook
* yawn * Let me know when I can freaking buy one! I'm sick of having to use their VM to develop my software, damn it!

