[AnarchX]

I assumed something in this direction, but I still wonder why C870 picture, where you could read TEGRA on cooler, was changed.

[AnarchX]

Nvidia has two CPU lines
Meet the Tegra APX and CSX

The big brother CSX 600 and 650 is aimed at larger machines with screens between handhelds and real laptops. It runs Wince, not XP or Me II because it is not x86, and in general makes you question why they bothered. The chip itself has 256K of L2 cache and can be die stacked to keep the footprint small.

This one runs at 700-800MHz and will support 1080p at 24FPS, not the full 60. It also has hard disk support and can run video in under 3W. If you are keeping track, this is about what Atom can do, but Atom doesn't have that pesky FPS limit.

Seems that NV wants to become a player in new "cheap, small PC/NB" market.

[INKster]

Originally Posted by AnarchX

Nvidia has two CPU lines
Meet the Tegra APX and CSX



Seems that NV wants to become a player in new "cheap, small PC/NB" market.

Curious how Charlie compares Nvidia ARM11 SoC's to Intel's x86 Atom (when even Intel itself admits that MID's will run Linux anyway, because Windows -x86- is just not adequate), but then comes up with an odd "FPS limit".
I don't see any Intel Atom with 2D/3D capabilities on such a low power consumption footprint in the near future, but maybe it's just me...

[MfA]

I don't see how 1080p video is relevant at all, regardless of framerate.

PS. what about the Intel CE 2110? (Though they seem to have gone a bit quiet on that front.)

[Arun]

Hah, does Charlie even realize Bluray (and HD DVD) is 1080p @ 24FPS? And Silverthorne certainly does not support 60 FPS; it might support 30 though, but I don't think that's the point here...

Also, 'under 3W'? Uhhhh I don't think so, unless you include a large LCD screen in that number. Given NV's power numbers at 720p, I would be very surprised if 1080p HP reached anywhere near 1W, let alone 3W... Also, I would very heavily suspect that they're using a dual-core ARM11 there, just because they can.

One reason I can imagine for NV to bother with this is the embedded market. Clearly in addition to UMPC/MID-like design wins, this could be a very viable solution for cars etc. - in fact, I wonder if it might not be usable in HDD-based PMPs? One negative point of the APX 2500 was that it had a fair bit of the die dedicated to the image signal processor & video encode, and that it didn't support HDDs. Clearly a solution that supports:
- Dual-Core ARM11
- 1080p Video Decode
- 600MPix/s 3D (like the APX 2500)
... would be ideal for a HDD-based PMP like the iPod or the Zune. Something with a 4.5" VGA ideally. Hmmmm. I don't really think there's any reason why that's not doable. In which case this should be in the handheld forum anyway!

[MrBelmontvedere]

this is the "APX 2500" with the Tegra processor (modified ARM11). supposedly it's "capable" of 720p, although I doubt such a small screen is actually 720p.

[trinibwoy]

How do you play an FPS on that thing anyway?

[Arun]

Uhhh, why are you guys discussing APX 2500, you're 3+ months late! http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/101/
And that's a prototype, obviously devices which are more geared towards FPS gaming would have a few control buttons or whatever (but presumably most devices will NOT be aimed at FPS gaming at all).

[INKster]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

How do you play an FPS on that thing anyway?

It was a reference design that Nvidia cooked to show off the SoC back at Mobile World Congress Barcelona in February.
It's has a touchscreen, so i'm guessing a 3D FPS is controlled either with a finger or a stylus.

[BRiT]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

How do you play an FPS on that thing anyway?

I think it has motion and tilt sensors on it, so you can use it like a 6 Axis controller to move around. Or maybe I'm confusing it with the Q3 on an iTouch video.

[annihilator]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

How do you play an FPS on that thing anyway?

Multi-touch screen technology!

Lightly press on your enemies with your finger to wreak havoc on them!

[Ike Turner]

Full product page with specs is up now for Tegra 600 and APX: http://www.nvidia.com/page/handheld.html

[Sxotty]

Originally Posted by Arun

Hah, does Charlie even realize Bluray (and HD DVD) is 1080p @ 24FPS? And Silverthorne certainly does not support 60 FPS; it might support 30 though, but I don't think that's the point here...

Also, 'under 3W'? Uhhhh I don't think so, unless you include a large LCD screen in that number. Given NV's power numbers at 720p, I would be very surprised if 1080p HP reached anywhere near 1W, let alone 3W... Also, I would very heavily suspect that they're using a dual-core ARM11 there, just because they can.

One reason I can imagine for NV to bother with this is the embedded market. Clearly in addition to UMPC/MID-like design wins, this could be a very viable solution for cars etc. - in fact, I wonder if it might not be usable in HDD-based PMPs? One negative point of the APX 2500 was that it had a fair bit of the die dedicated to the image signal processor & video encode, and that it didn't support HDDs. Clearly a solution that supports:
- Dual-Core ARM11
- 1080p Video Decode
- 600MPix/s 3D (like the APX 2500)
... would be ideal for a HDD-based PMP like the iPod or the Zune. Something with a 4.5" VGA ideally. Hmmmm. I don't really think there's any reason why that's not doable. In which case this should be in the handheld forum anyway!

As someone who has a computer in my car that is the first thing I thought, but I imagine it will be OEM only. Nvidia might find success if they tried the via artigo route. Of course it will probably fail due to lack of software support for regular folks.

[Sxotty]

Originally Posted by annihilator

Multi-touch screen technology!

Lightly press on your enemies with your finger to wreak havoc on them!

You mean caress your enemies to make them explode?

Sounds ...dirty

[INKster]

Clearly, Fudo never heard of the concept "emulator" before...

[Sxotty]

Originally Posted by INKster

Clearly, Fudo never heard of the concept "emulator" before...

Well in fairness the relevance depends how much a performance penalty such an emulator would have. Thinking back to emulators for Play station etc... not all were created equal. Obviously he totally missed that point, but it would an interesting thing to know what kind of hit one was talking about.

[INKster]

Originally Posted by Sxotty

Well in fairness the relevance depends how much a performance penalty such an emulator would have. Thinking back to emulators for Play station etc... not all were created equal. Obviously he totally missed that point, but it would an interesting thing to know what kind of hit one was talking about.

Well, he was talking about Windows XP on such a device.
Considering that Window 95 ran (more like it painfully "crawled") emulated on top of a modified linux distro setup for MIPS architectures in the PSP, i wouldn't pin my hopes on it becoming a reality anytime soon...
Not impossible, but highly unlikely.

[itaru]

Nvidia fud slide
Atom?
No! Dothan.

[Arun]

Don't think so, that's Diamondville AFAIK, and indeed there's a tiny bit of overlap there in their target market; however, they are definitely being a bit disingenious by not comparing anything at all against Menlow, and they definitely look a lot less unbelievably superior if they did that. The way I look at it is this: they're doing a decent job, but their competitors are doing an awful one...

Really, Diamondville is a disgrace, and the only reason they made it that bad is likely that they don't want to cannibalize their own market... It would definitely be interesting to see a NVIDIA MCP73 chipset next to a Silverthorne CPU, and I think from a theoretical POV they could do that and it'd result in a much better platform than Diamondville or the SiS chipset-based one, but of course it's not going to happen...

[Arun]

Actually ignore me, you're right. This is Diamondville from a presentation that was given less than an hour ago so I guess they realized their mistake:

[Thorburn]

Originally Posted by Arun

Actually ignore me, you're right. This is Diamondville from a presentation that was given less than an hour ago so I guess they realized their mistake:

The original is a Dothan based Eee motherboard.

The second one is still tosh, that's Diamondville + 945 + ICH7. They should be comparing to Silverthorne + Poulsbo. Silverthorne has a smaller packaging than Diamondville and Poulsbo integrates the ICH on die and again has a far smaller package.

But then that would be misleading enough for an NVIDIA presentation would it

[Mariner]

I always think that it must take a special kind of mind to work in PR.

[Arun]

Thorburn: The point is that mini-notebooks actually use Diamondville, not Menlow, and they're also aiming it at that market so they definitely have a point that they do have such an advantage there - of course, a huge part of their addressable market is based on Menlow, and there much of their advantage both in terms of power consumption & footprint evaporates. And they conveniently forget to mention that. They likely still have a slight advantage though, definitely - but nothing anywhere as drastic as they claim to have.

[Thorburn]

I can't see Diamondville in anything smaller than 7" devices, and I can't imagine Tegra in anything that large.

[Arun]

4" to 12". And no, I'm not kidding, and yes, they're potentially crazy.