16 ms·
Raspberry Pi's GPU double the performance of iPhone 4S
- timdot 15y agoWell that's embarrassing.
- muyuu 15y agoWhy would a phone need a GPU comparable to that of a device that's supposed to work connected to a desktop monitor?
- unwind 15y agoThe iPhone 4S' display runs at 960x640, which is about 67% of a "typical" TV:s 1280*720. The Pi is intended for connection mainly to TV:s as far as I've understood it, and clearly the iPhone's display is not very far from such "desktop monitors" in terms of number of pixels. If you compare to an HDTV:s 1920x1080 though, the iPhone lands at around 30% so then it becomes less of a problem for it to have a less capable graphics subsystem. Of course, the Pi is designed for non-battery operation too, which kind of makes the comparison a bit unfair to begin with.
- talmand 15y agoTrue about the power, but I keep hearing the Pi can be run from AA batteries because it has such low power requirements. If this is the case I'd like to see some benchmarks involving that type of power source.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 15y agoEmbarrassing? Remember that they're working without power constraints; it's a rather different problem.
- felixfurtak 15y agoshame the BCM2835 won't be open sourced anytime soon...
- thristian 15y agoSo 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a year and a half or two years into the future and what you can do with the Raspberry Pi will be limited to what outdated binary packages you can find, or what software you're prepared to compile yourself on a tiny embedded processor.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 15y agoI 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 15y agoThe 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.
- andyzaharia 15y agoNot 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 15y agoI wonder when mobile devices are going to contain FPGAs. They are often a factor of 100x power/performance better than CPUs/GPUs.
- pavlov 15y agoCan you provide some examples where an FPGA provides such performance gains over a modern CPU and GPU combo?
- jules 15y agoMicrosoft Research has some papers on this, for example: Where’s the Beef? Why FPGAs Are So Fast -- http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/70636/tr-2008-130.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/70636/tr-2008-130.pdf BLAS Comparison on FPGA, CPU and GPU -- http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/130834/ISVLSI_FINAL.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/130834/ISVLSI_FINAL.pdf "Results show that FPGAs offer comparable performance as well as 2.7 to 293 times better energy efficiency for the test cases that we implemented on all three platforms." Here's a talk about compiling legacy C/C++ code to FPGAs. With a couple of modifications to the code they claim 100x-300x performance/watt improvement in various benchmarks. slides: http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/103696/dl/103696.pdf http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/103696/dl/103696.pdf video: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=103696&l=i http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=103... For example they have a Black Scholes simulation that runs 30x faster and uses 6W of power instead of 68W. That's >300x power efficiency.
- jmaygarden 15y agoWhere are you getting those numbers? My experience is quite the opposite. FPGA devices are usually physically large as well.
- robot 15y agoThe 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 15y agoThere 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 15y agoThanks, didn't know about these.
- modeless 15y agoWow, 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.
- timdot 15y agoPersonally I think the fairly low amount of memory is good and works well with their motive - to promote computer science education. If it had more, you could easily chuck massive frameworks and whatnot at it, but as there's not as much RAM then hopefully people learning with it will have to work a little closer to the bare metal. I'm sure things to make Raspberry Pi work 'easier' will arrive - and that's not necessarily a bad thing - but at least they'll be more constrained.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago>"The 256 MB of RAM will be very constraining for any app trying to use all that power, though." My Archos 101 has 256MB RAM and runs Android suprisingly well. It only does 720p video playback though; full specs http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_101it/specs.html?country=us&lang=en http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_101it/specs.html?co.... I'm not going to lie, it does tend to lag a bit; wonder how easy upgrading the RAM will be on the RPi.
- bockris 15y agoThe RasberryPi is using a BCM2835 SoC that has the RAM on the die. Basically not upgradeable without swapping out the whole chip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi
- gravitronic 15y agoAnd as a consumer (or a company that is not a "Broadcom partner") you can't buy the BCM2835 in any model so even if you could desolder the BGA you couldn't buy any replacement (or build your own boards).
- omgtehlion 15y agoA sentence «and should double iPhone 4S performance across a range of content» is a really authoritative benchmark I suppose...
- kevingadd 15y agoDoes 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-benchmarks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-ben... says SGX543MP2.
- dan1234 15y agoI think the author is saying that the Broadcom GPU outperforms both the Tegra 2 (used in Android devices & netbooks) and the iPhone4S's GPU. (edit: fixed typo)
- nextparadigms 15y agoWhy 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.
- TobbenTM 15y agoThe ARM chip is not open source, and probably won't be at release either.
- noonespecial 15y agoI'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.
- fierarul 15y agoI 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.
- joezydeco 15y agoLittle confused here. Has the Pi project changed from "low-cost education computer for the masses" into "iOS-killing mobile game platform"?
- Ecio78 15y agoI 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
- napierzaza 15y agoSo Raspberry Pi, a product that does not exist for sale, is able to do one thing better than the iPhone. Of course this is in spite of not doing 10^5 things that the iPhone does. RP sounds like a very cool platform, and I will likely buy it. But you're comparing Apples to Raspberries in this case since they aren't really similar. I will probably buy one, but not because I think it can replace the iPhone. Why is the iPhone somehow considered the thing to beat in graphics? As a mobile battery powered device the iPhone compromises on all sorts of levels. If the iPhone plugged into a wall it could probably do all sorts of interesting things to. Also, Broadcom? They are notorious with their drivers not being open-sourced. So I wonder if the RP source code is going to have a big binary blob in it or not. Because that would seriously affect my interest in buying one. Mostly because I know a lot of developers who wouldn't want to develop for a system like that, and that translates directly to the kind of projects you'll see on the device.
- st3fan 15y agoBut 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 15y agoyea according to their site you can run it on 4 AA cells. Can you buy an IPhone for $25? http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
- wr1472 15y agoI think it requires about 5w of power so yes. In fact I'm planning on getting a micro usb solar opwer pack to use with it if I can get my hands on a board.
- st3fan 15y agoThat 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 15y agoYea I was looking at the video of it running XBMC. Thinking of running it as a media center
- jmaygarden 15y agoI can go out and buy an iPhone 4S today. Can you buy a Raspberry Pi at any price right now?
- freehunter 15y ago"It's better because it's available now" isn't an incredibly appealing argument when the price different is around $500.
- EvilLook 15y ago* 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!
- lbotos 15y agoDoes 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.
- falling 15y agoDid 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.
- jrockway 15y agoThis 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...
- spobo 15y agoIt can decode and output a 1080p signal. What more do you need from a GPU? :)
- nirvana 15y agoIt 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.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tuxguy 15y ago#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://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8428147.stm http://asia.cnet.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-olpc-xo-3-0-tablet-62213156.htm http://asia.cnet.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-olpc-xo-3-0-... Aakash Ubislate7 http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/08/the-inside-story-of-indias-50-computer-tablet/ http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/08/the-inside-story-o... 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-aakash-calls-it-pre-beta-and-questions-its-indian-ness/ http://phonemantra.com/2012/01/olpc-india-head-rips-into-aak... 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://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.akashtablet.com/ 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-raspberry-pi http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-...