4 ms·

In other words, Valve pulled a Raspberry Pi.

danpalmer 3y ago
I don't know much about the Raspberry Pi situation. Are they using existing designs? Are they doing things like fabbing extra cores to increase yields? I assume they're on an older process anyway. I don't necessarily feel Raspberry Pis are low quality – they're low spec, but I believe the ones I've had in the past seemed good, although I guess there's less stuff to be low quality (vs Steam Decks having a large amount of not-great plastic, control surfaces that fail in very noticeable ways, etc).
- refulgentis 3y ago
  Note these chips weren't fabbed with extra cores to increase yields
- Narishma 3y ago
  Like Valve, they initially repurposed an old SoC that was designed for something else, either set-top boxes or phones, don't remember which. After their success they started doing custom work on the follow-up SoCs.
- bonzini 3y ago
  Yes, the lead of the Raspberry Pi foundation used to work at Broadcom and used a pretty old design that was meant for set top boxes because Broadcom sold it for little money.
- xyx0826 3y ago
  Raspberry Pi’s original SoC is designed by Broadcom for the set-top box market. Subsequent SoCs up until Pi 4 are of the same architecture design but with the Arm cores swapped out and upgraded. https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/563 https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/563
- drewzero1 3y ago
  I believe the story was (at one point at least) that RPi used a Broadcom SoC that had already been developed for some other application, keeping the cost down by using a chip that was already in volume production. I don't believe this is still the case but then again I haven't been following RPi development very closely. I don't think it indicates any use of inferior materials or build quality per se, just that they designed around existing components to avoid the high initial cost of a bespoke SoC.
scruple 3y ago
Nevermind what Nintendo has been getting up to since 1989...

I don't know much about the Raspberry Pi situation. Are they using existing designs? Are they doing things like fabbing extra cores to increase yields? I assume they're on an older process anyway. I don't necessarily feel Raspberry Pis are low quality – they're low spec, but I believe the ones I've had in the past seemed good, although I guess there's less stuff to be low quality (vs Steam Decks having a large amount of not-great plastic, control surfaces that fail in very noticeable ways, etc).

refulgentis 3y ago
Note these chips weren't fabbed with extra cores to increase yields
Narishma 3y ago
Like Valve, they initially repurposed an old SoC that was designed for something else, either set-top boxes or phones, don't remember which. After their success they started doing custom work on the follow-up SoCs.
bonzini 3y ago
Yes, the lead of the Raspberry Pi foundation used to work at Broadcom and used a pretty old design that was meant for set top boxes because Broadcom sold it for little money.
xyx0826 3y ago
Raspberry Pi’s original SoC is designed by Broadcom for the set-top box market. Subsequent SoCs up until Pi 4 are of the same architecture design but with the Arm cores swapped out and upgraded. https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/563 https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/563
drewzero1 3y ago
I believe the story was (at one point at least) that RPi used a Broadcom SoC that had already been developed for some other application, keeping the cost down by using a chip that was already in volume production. I don't believe this is still the case but then again I haven't been following RPi development very closely. I don't think it indicates any use of inferior materials or build quality per se, just that they designed around existing components to avoid the high initial cost of a bespoke SoC.

scruple 3y ago

Nevermind what Nintendo has been getting up to since 1989...