NVIDIA Tegra Architecture

Exophase said:
So I noticed that the Cortex-A53 cluster is disabled in Jetson TX1, or at least it's not mentioned in any of the material for it. AFAIK this was also the case with Shield TV. But with Shield TV it wasn't a big deal since it was always going to be in a big wall powered and well cooled box. The TX1 module, on the other hand, could have realistically been placed in a small battery powered custom mobile device given its modest form factor.

Is there any device out there that does enable the A53s on a Tegra X1? Is it possible that it's just flat out broken or somehow compromised to the point where it'd may as well be?
Click to expand...
Pixel C?
 
I'm not sure but I think the Pixel C doesn't have the A53 cluster enabled either. If yes I wouldn't suggest it's an issue for that one either since it appears "fat" enough as a device.
 
I'm not sure but I think the Pixel C doesn't have the A53 cluster enabled either. If yes I wouldn't suggest it's an issue for that one either since it appears "fat" enough as a device.
 
I've looked around a little bit and neither Google nor NVIDIA seems to have mentioned big.LITTLE for the Pixel C, or A53 cores, or the octa-core nature of the SoC, or anything that would suggest the A53 cluster is active. Supposedly, Google announced the Pixel C as a quad-core device, but I'm not sure where.

This blog post by NVIDIA is unusually quiet about the CPU side of things: http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/09/29/tegra-x1-google-pixel-c/

So my guess would be that it's disabled.
 
AFAICT, the Pixel C only announces 4 cores because there's no global task scheduling enabled in any Tegra SoC so far. So although there are 8 physical cores in there, the chip can only use either one block or another.

This doesn't mean the tablet never uses its Cortex A53. I believe its battery life would be pretty terrible if the Cortex A57 block was being used all the time.
 
There's no way I can imagine they could ever enable global task scheduling with the surrounding hw they're using for the CPU IP. If the A53 quad doesn't get enabled at boot up in the Pixel C like in all other devices with the X1, then I don't think the situation is any different in that one either.
 
Whatever happened to their software modem tech?

Is it going to end up in these new devices?

They cut the price of the K1 Shield. But it's not available with a modem.
 
wco81 said:
Whatever happened to their software modem tech?

Is it going to end up in these new devices?

They cut the price of the K1 Shield. But it's not available with a modem.
Click to expand...

It was too good a deal to pass up and I don't need LTE anyway. I also bought a charger and cover that was waaay cheaper than the official NVIDIA products saving about another $40-$50.

I didn't see the new offering until today and was on the verge of choosing either the ASUS Zenpad s 8.0 or Samsung Tab S2 8". I'm so glad I waited as I'm getting almost everything I want and saving $100-$200 compared to those 2 other products.
 
I bought a used Tegra Note 7 for a whopping $60 a month or so ago. Nice tablet aside from battery life. 1GB RAM is of course not so hot either. But it's definitely the fastest ARM tablet I've had so far.

A $200 Shield Tablet is appealing. I wish it had 4GB RAM though. 2GB RAM must cost nothing these days.
 
swaaye said:
I bought a used Tegra Note 7 for a whopping $60 a month or so ago. Nice tablet aside from battery life. 1GB RAM is of course not so hot either. But it's definitely the fastest ARM tablet I've had so far.

A $200 Shield Tablet is appealing. I wish it had 4GB RAM though. 2GB RAM must cost nothing these days.
Click to expand...

I agree 4GB RAM would've been sweet. At that price it was too good to pass up. Also, it still benchmarks as among the Top tablets out there. I think it may even be the best in the 8" category.
 
$200 is a great price for the Shield Tablet.

Ailuros said:
There's no way I can imagine they could ever enable global task scheduling with the surrounding hw they're using for the CPU IP.
Click to expand...
Did anyone suggest that?

Ailuros said:
If the A53 quad doesn't get enabled at boot up in the Pixel C like in all other devices with the X1, then I don't think the situation is any different in that one either.
Click to expand...
Who's saying it doesn't get enabled?


I think I made this question a million times, but can the K1's Cortex A15 even address 4GB of RAM? It's a 32bit CPU, and I don't think I've ever seen any Cortex A15 smartphone/tablet with more than 3GB.
 
3GB would be fine too. Android is so limited for multitasking that 2GB is quite acceptable though.
 
Last edited:
Rys said:
Because they turn it off after boot.
Click to expand...

I get that a device that plugs to the wall and isn't meant to be turned on 24/7 (like the Shield TV) doesn't really need the Cortex A53 module.
But the Pixel C is a tablet, runs on batteries and the standby mode needs a CPU on constant "alert". Why would they disable the Cortex A53 there?
 
ToTTenTranz said:
I get that a device that plugs to the wall and isn't meant to be turned on 24/7 (like the Shield TV) doesn't really need the Cortex A53 module.
But the Pixel C is a tablet, runs on batteries and the standby mode needs a CPU on constant "alert". Why would they disable the Cortex A53 there?
Click to expand...

Because they can't get it to work correctly?

Regards,
SB
 
My pet theory is that Google did the X1 kernel and config for N9, turned them off for whatever reason, and that kernel and setup has persisted in X1 Android (X1 Chromebooks share the kernel) ever since because it works and nobody wants to revisit it.

I don't think the cluster is functionally broken. Someone should just test it.
 
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