AMD Launches "Bald Eagle" R-Series APUs, Talks Up Linux

[stiiixy]

It's an Embedded part -- traditional gaming is not a big part of their market, although things like slot machines are...

So there's absolutely no chance of ever seeing this released to the general public?

[bridgman]

So there's absolutely no chance of ever seeing this released to the general public?

Not sure what you mean by "the general public" -- AFAIK they are available from the major industrial distributors in onesies (companies like Arrow & Hamilton Avnet back when I was doing electronics mfg, not sure who the big ones are today) although I imagine they are expensive in low quantities. The embedded parts tend to be spec'ed and packaged differently so you wouldn't see them at a retail computer store.

Is it really the embedded part you're interested in or more of a server SKU like Berlin ?

[grndzro]

How come Mantle isn't even mentioned in the press release? it talks about DirectX, OpenGL, OpenCL, HSA, etc but no mention of Mantle at all. I wonder if this chip is the same one powering the xbox one and ps4 which is why they are drawing comparisons right in the press release and specifically avoided talking up Mantle support. If memory serves me correct, someone from either the Sony or Microsoft camp also flat out said Mantle will not be supported on their end.

Could someone clarify?

I would assume for AMD it was either port Mantle to Linux or revamp it's OGL and Linux drivers. Considering the work NV has done with OGL extensions and that OGL is already cross compatible it would make sense to just leave a few people on the Windows drivers/Mantle and devote a much larger task force to Linux/OGL considering that is the direction engines are going.

If both AMD and NV are pushing the new optimization extensions that would cover performance for both parties. Might not be 100% as good as Mantle but with a common graphics API between AMD and NV it would streamline everything.

[stiiixy]

Not sure what you mean by "the general public" -- AFAIK they are available from the major industrial distributors in onesies (companies like Arrow & Hamilton Avnet back when I was doing electronics mfg, not sure who the big ones are today) although I imagine they are expensive in low quantities. The embedded parts tend to be spec'ed and packaged differently so you wouldn't see them at a retail computer store.

Is it really the embedded part you're interested in or more of a server SKU like Berlin ?

Yes, onesies as you call it, as opposed to lots of 1000 etc.

In your opinion would there be any practical value for a company to produce an ITX mobo for example, for low-end computing similar to Pandaboards, R-Pi etc (yes, I know they're ARM).

[bridgman]

I was under the impression that a number of different ITX boards already existed. There are some embedded boards available too (see example below) but they tend to be smaller than ITX (see example below - the Gizmo board is 4"x4").

http://www.gizmosphere.org/why-gizmo/gizmoboard/

In general, though, I guess I would expect to see the less expensive consumer parts used in the kind of low-end computing applications I *think* you're talking about (based on the RPi/PB examples), not the industrial-spec (and pricy) embedded parts.

[drSeehas]

ECC

... they might feature ECC! And cTDP.
Please, please AMD give these to normal users also.

???
Why do you think, an APU design differentiates between embedded and "normal" use?

To use ECC, the BIOS and Mainboard have to support it too.

[Kivada]

People stop wasting bandwidth with these large animations.

OMG, they might feature ECC! And cTDP.
Please, please AMD give these to normal users also.

IIRC the integrated memory controller on AMD CPUs has been able to use ECC ram for years even on the desktop models, it just wasn't the recommended memory type for cost and speed for the target customers of the non Opteron series.

[Kivada]

Is these AMD's response to Intel NUC's? That would be interesting.

I've been considering getting an i3 Haswell NUC for the kids for a poorman steam machine. At moderate resolutions, it should really scream. I wish the price was a little lower.

I'm hoping to see someone whip up a NUC sized Steam box based around the 35w FX-7600P notebook APU with an optional Radeon HD8970M MXM GPU. Would be a very small, but absurdly fast for it's size little gaming machine.

[Adarion]

???
Why do you think, an APU design differentiates between embedded and "normal" use?
To use ECC, the BIOS and Mainboard have to support it too.

Latter I know.
Well, the APU not but sales people. You know, there are some interesting chips that carry the label "for embedded use". But they are not sold to "the public". They end up being spread only among enterprises who offer finished solutions*1. And sometimes these do not fit my purpose, are expensive or are put in resin (locked black box).
Or, looking at things like Gizmo, they look quite good, might even feature Coreboot but carry a hefty price tag.
I would love to see these chips sold for mainboards (as well as the mainboards with the appropriate socket) so you can build your own little things. Car PCs, HTPCs, file servers (given there are enough SATA ports or at least a bus systems with some slots (PCIe)). Little hackboxes with parallel port so you can so some ISP for AVRs for doing your first experiments.
Sometimes it is hard to get a hold of these kind of chips. Or I totally look on the wrong webpages where to buy that stuff.


About the ECC: Afair AMD's chips, since they integrated the memory controller on the CPU, had often featured ECC support but "lately" this was cancelled. (E.g. the E-Series didn't have that.) It is not a must but a fine addition if you want some rock solid file server or something that sees reboots rarely or otherwise manages larger amounts of data where flipped bits are not welcome. So the re-introduction of ECC support pleases me as well as this new cTDP feature.


*1 Does anyone remember Transmeta's chips? Awesome concept, but it was only sold in outright horrible solutions. So called "Fly books" with Windows on them and ridiculous price tag or in combination (soldered) with an XGI GPU (*shudder* note: XGI was worse than VIA).

[drSeehas]

... there are some interesting chips that carry the label "for embedded use". But they are not sold to "the public". They end up being spread only among enterprises who offer finished solutions ...
I would love to see these chips sold for mainboards (as well as the mainboards with the appropriate socket) so you can build your own little things. ...

All these "interesting chips" have "socket" FT3b or FP3. So it makes absolutely no sense to sell these chips to "the public".