4 ms·

BeagleBoard is nice, but the PandaBoard is better (dual Cortex-A9 at 1GHz)

39 points by pietrofmaggi 16y ago

1tw 16y ago
And they'll give you one for free if your planned project is 'cool', enough.
- pietrofmaggi 16y ago
  PandaBoard Request Program: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG5mcVNXSFFleVZjVFNtMVVqXzVYY1E6MQ https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG5mcVNXSFF...
pmjordan 16y ago
That looks like a very impressive piece of kit. I was planning to get a Hawkboard Lite for a project, but might wait for this to become available instead, if the price is decent. 8 times the RAM!
- pietrofmaggi 16y ago
  The different amount of RAM is the last think to notice here. The OMAP L138 on the hawkboard is an ARM9 (+ C674xDSP) at 375/456MHz, the OMAP4 of the pandaboard is a dual core Cortex-A9 at 1GHz. They are completely in two different class. I too hope for the price.
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    The different amount of RAM is the last think to notice here. That depends mainly on the use you have in mind. For my purposes, the Hawkboard's CPU would probably be fine. But yeah, the Pandaboard is quite a beast - twice the computing power of an iPad, if I'm not mistaken. (not counting the DSP)
    - codedivine 16y ago
      More than twice I would say. iPad's A4 is a tweaked Cortex A8. Cortex A9 is out-of-order compared to in-order A8 and will likely be faster per clock.
      - mansr 16y ago
        The A9 is readily 25% faster per clock than the A8 for scalar integer operations. Scalar floating-point is 5-10x faster depending on the exact operations. Vector instructions are mostly the same or slower than A8 due to lack of the limited dual-issue present in A8. I have yet to run a proper benchmark to compare the difference in vector performance in realistic situations.
sunkencity 16y ago
Awesome. Looking forward to change on-the-road development platform from macbook to iPad + headless linux computer using a board like that.
JoachimSchipper 16y ago
Very nice, but quite powerful for "embedded"..
8ren 16y ago
A boring project would be to regut an old eeePC with it - x2 the CPU and x2 the RAM. Seems like about the only way I'm gonna get an ARM netbook. :-( The board is 4"x4.5", but I couldn't find thickness, weight or power consumption. Some specs at bottom of: http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/PandaBoard_Early_Adopter_Program http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/PandaBoard_Early_Adopter_Progr...
Das_Bruce 16y ago
I have a few boring projects I'd like to try with something like this, any idea what it is likely to retail for?
thingie 16y ago
Well, I wonder if it would be suitable as some kind of low-power all-in-one home server (file sharing, irc in screen, not much more), network router and jukebox and movie player. In theory, specs are ok for that purpose, but from the remark "if you need more than 1GB, you're probably doing it wrong", it seems that, hm, I'd be doing it wrong, because 1GB isn't exactly a lot of memory and it'd be wise to put there more. (And of course, USB might not be the ideal bus to connect a lot of disk space.)
- borism 16y ago
  1GB is 1GB of RAM. It doesn't seem to have onboard ROM, but SD slot surely will support up to 32GB. And it has 10/100 Ethernet besides USB, though latter is probably suitable enough to "connect a lot of disk space".
  - thingie 16y ago
    I know, but 1GB of RAM isn't that lot if I want at least reasonably fast file sharing (especially if the primary storage would be the harddisks via USB), run some network services and even some desktops apps via networked X11, which is roughly what I want (so I'm asking if this is the 'doing it wrong' case).
    - fr0sty 16y ago
      I would guess you are overestimating the memory footprint of your applications (unless you are planning on running Eclipse/Firefox/etc.) on the box. USB2.0 will push 480Mb/sec which is probably sufficient for streaming content. My wireless router has 64MB of ram and is capable of running as a NAS device if you plug a USB enclosure into it.
    - oomkiller 16y ago
      Only time you would run into issues is if you were using something like ZFS that keeps an in memory ARC cache. If you want to run X11 apps, just get a linux computer.
- joshu 16y ago
sireat 16y ago
This is all very nice, unfortunately, I couldn't find any information, when a real human with a boring project will be able to buy one. Only thing I got was that early adopters will get some at the end of October. Usually, one gravitates toward something inferior shipping(BeagleBoard XM in this case) to something superior, which is unavailable.
aberkowitz 16y ago
How can they give out free ones without coming up with a price? You cannot develop a commercial product without knowing how much it will cost.
- zokier 16y ago
  I believe the purpose of dev kits is prototyping, where cost isn't that much of an issue.
  - aberkowitz 16y ago
    They're asking you to invest your valuable ttime into developing a product when they cannot tell you how much it will cost. What happens if you develop a product and then you find out that the hardware cost pushes it out of the price point for your target demograpic?
    - zokier 16y ago
      What I meant was that I don't think PandaBoard itself is meant to ship for your customers, but to allow you to prototype your ideas, and evaluate the hardware needs of your product, so that you can then build your own hardware which you ship to your customers. And that's why I said that dev kit price is not that much of an issue, as it does not directly affect the price of the hardware you are going to ship. edit: from their FAQ: Is PandaBoard a end product or can I utilize it in my end product? PandaBoard is a development platform! It is not an end product nor do we recommend directly using it in an end product. We encourage you to leverage open & low cost PandaBoard to explore, prototype your software & hardware design and venture into creating your own OMAP4430 based product.
jbarham 16y ago
It's hard to figure out what problems a board like this solves. If you want a cheap file server just buy an Atom board w/ a passive heat-sink. If you want to play around w/ "physical computing" and drive sensors, the Arduino ecosystem is much more open and vibrant. And IIRC although the BeagleBoard had a nice GPU, it wasn't programmable without signing an NDA.

39 points by pietrofmaggi 16y ago

1tw 16y ago

And they'll give you one for free if your planned project is 'cool', enough.

pietrofmaggi 16y ago
PandaBoard Request Program: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG5mcVNXSFFleVZjVFNtMVVqXzVYY1E6MQ https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG5mcVNXSFF...

pmjordan 16y ago

That looks like a very impressive piece of kit. I was planning to get a Hawkboard Lite for a project, but might wait for this to become available instead, if the price is decent. 8 times the RAM!

pietrofmaggi 16y ago
The different amount of RAM is the last think to notice here. The OMAP L138 on the hawkboard is an ARM9 (+ C674xDSP) at 375/456MHz, the OMAP4 of the pandaboard is a dual core Cortex-A9 at 1GHz. They are completely in two different class. I too hope for the price.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  The different amount of RAM is the last think to notice here. That depends mainly on the use you have in mind. For my purposes, the Hawkboard's CPU would probably be fine. But yeah, the Pandaboard is quite a beast - twice the computing power of an iPad, if I'm not mistaken. (not counting the DSP)
  - codedivine 16y ago
    More than twice I would say. iPad's A4 is a tweaked Cortex A8. Cortex A9 is out-of-order compared to in-order A8 and will likely be faster per clock.
    - mansr 16y ago
      The A9 is readily 25% faster per clock than the A8 for scalar integer operations. Scalar floating-point is 5-10x faster depending on the exact operations. Vector instructions are mostly the same or slower than A8 due to lack of the limited dual-issue present in A8. I have yet to run a proper benchmark to compare the difference in vector performance in realistic situations.

sunkencity 16y ago

Awesome. Looking forward to change on-the-road development platform from macbook to iPad + headless linux computer using a board like that.

JoachimSchipper 16y ago

Very nice, but quite powerful for "embedded"..

8ren 16y ago

A boring project would be to regut an old eeePC with it - x2 the CPU and x2 the RAM. Seems like about the only way I'm gonna get an ARM netbook. :-( The board is 4"x4.5", but I couldn't find thickness, weight or power consumption. Some specs at bottom of: http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/PandaBoard_Early_Adopter_Program http://www.omappedia.org/wiki/PandaBoard_Early_Adopter_Progr...

Das_Bruce 16y ago

I have a few boring projects I'd like to try with something like this, any idea what it is likely to retail for?

thingie 16y ago

Well, I wonder if it would be suitable as some kind of low-power all-in-one home server (file sharing, irc in screen, not much more), network router and jukebox and movie player. In theory, specs are ok for that purpose, but from the remark "if you need more than 1GB, you're probably doing it wrong", it seems that, hm, I'd be doing it wrong, because 1GB isn't exactly a lot of memory and it'd be wise to put there more. (And of course, USB might not be the ideal bus to connect a lot of disk space.)

borism 16y ago
1GB is 1GB of RAM. It doesn't seem to have onboard ROM, but SD slot surely will support up to 32GB. And it has 10/100 Ethernet besides USB, though latter is probably suitable enough to "connect a lot of disk space".
- thingie 16y ago
  I know, but 1GB of RAM isn't that lot if I want at least reasonably fast file sharing (especially if the primary storage would be the harddisks via USB), run some network services and even some desktops apps via networked X11, which is roughly what I want (so I'm asking if this is the 'doing it wrong' case).
  - fr0sty 16y ago
    I would guess you are overestimating the memory footprint of your applications (unless you are planning on running Eclipse/Firefox/etc.) on the box. USB2.0 will push 480Mb/sec which is probably sufficient for streaming content. My wireless router has 64MB of ram and is capable of running as a NAS device if you plug a USB enclosure into it.
  - oomkiller 16y ago
    Only time you would run into issues is if you were using something like ZFS that keeps an in memory ARC cache. If you want to run X11 apps, just get a linux computer.
joshu 16y ago

sireat 16y ago

This is all very nice, unfortunately, I couldn't find any information, when a real human with a boring project will be able to buy one. Only thing I got was that early adopters will get some at the end of October. Usually, one gravitates toward something inferior shipping(BeagleBoard XM in this case) to something superior, which is unavailable.

aberkowitz 16y ago

How can they give out free ones without coming up with a price? You cannot develop a commercial product without knowing how much it will cost.

zokier 16y ago
I believe the purpose of dev kits is prototyping, where cost isn't that much of an issue.
- aberkowitz 16y ago
  They're asking you to invest your valuable ttime into developing a product when they cannot tell you how much it will cost. What happens if you develop a product and then you find out that the hardware cost pushes it out of the price point for your target demograpic?
  - zokier 16y ago
    What I meant was that I don't think PandaBoard itself is meant to ship for your customers, but to allow you to prototype your ideas, and evaluate the hardware needs of your product, so that you can then build your own hardware which you ship to your customers. And that's why I said that dev kit price is not that much of an issue, as it does not directly affect the price of the hardware you are going to ship. edit: from their FAQ: Is PandaBoard a end product or can I utilize it in my end product? PandaBoard is a development platform! It is not an end product nor do we recommend directly using it in an end product. We encourage you to leverage open & low cost PandaBoard to explore, prototype your software & hardware design and venture into creating your own OMAP4430 based product.

jbarham 16y ago

It's hard to figure out what problems a board like this solves. If you want a cheap file server just buy an Atom board w/ a passive heat-sink. If you want to play around w/ "physical computing" and drive sensors, the Arduino ecosystem is much more open and vibrant. And IIRC although the BeagleBoard had a nice GPU, it wasn't programmable without signing an NDA.