Thinq: Nvidia declares that Google tablets are the future

[cbn]

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1895969/nvidia-declares-google-tablets-future

Lots of talk about Google Operating systems as Nvidia's future but what about Physx and CUDA?

 

[AnandThenMan]

JHH keeps saying Tegra will change the world, but so far it's been a dud. But I guess if you don't succeed...

 

[Genx87]

JHH keeps saying Tegra will change the world, but so far it's been a dud. But I guess if you don't succeed...

Keep trying. This year is looking up for Tegra. This product could be a big deal.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Keep trying. This year is looking up for Tegra. This product could be a big deal.

This year is almost over. I heard in January how amazing Tegra was going "ramp". JHH said the same thing two days ago

"Our tablet and phone business is going to ramp. And it's going to ramp hard."

Jensen loves the word "ramp" :sneaky:

 

[Genx87]

When i said "this" I was thinking 2011.

 

[cbn]

Tegra 2 is based on the ARM Cortex-A9 chip architecture and Huang explained that his company's focus now is on building system-on-a-chip chipsets, saying, "we're taking integration to a new level," not new cores.

Can someone explain to me what "taking integration to a whole new level means"?

How will Nvidia ARM designs be an improvement over the competition?

 

[ModestGamer]

Keep trying. This year is looking up for Tegra. This product could be a big deal.

ARM yes, tegra no.

given the x86 software compatability and operating system support I fully expect to see the new APU's from AMD and Intel to make a big push in this direction with all the new power gating features.

The wonder of this is simple to comprehend. If the devices are x86 compliant then the OS ecosystem and the Application support structure makes a lateral move with minimal outlay in cash.

Lower R&D costs means faster market cycles and with more powerful APU's taking ye more chips off the boartd and reducing package size and power consumption. ARM has a uphill battle to maintain market share in this segement.

 

[cbn]

Would anyone be surprised if Nvidia eventually decided to persue a more software based (rather than hardware based) approach to these small computers?

 

[Arkadrel]

Google are makeing a tablet OS, called Honeycombe.
Samsung has said they will be useing Honeycombe.

Nvidia says they would LOVE for their Tegra 2 to be in the tablets that do run Honeycombe.

And why not? google and samsung = major $$$.

This could probably make nvidia alot of ($_$) if they managed to get their tegra 2 into tablets.

 

[Genx87]

ARM yes, tegra no.

given the x86 software compatability and operating system support I fully expect to see the new APU's from AMD and Intel to make a big push in this direction with all the new power gating features.

The wonder of this is simple to comprehend. If the devices are x86 compliant then the OS ecosystem and the Application support structure makes a lateral move with minimal outlay in cash.

Lower R&D costs means faster market cycles and with more powerful APU's taking ye more chips off the boartd and reducing package size and power consumption. ARM has a uphill battle to maintain market share in this segement.

Power function in an x86 would have to be light years ahead of where it is today. And many of these devices require no backwards compatibility. x86 is going to have a hard time competing with ARM in this space.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Google are makeing a tablet OS, called Honeycombe.
Samsung has said they will be useing Honeycombe.

Nvidia says they would LOVE for their Tegra 2 to be in the tablets that do run Honeycombe.

And why not? google and samsung = major $$$.

This could probably make nvidia alot of ($_$) if they managed to get their tegra 2 into tablets.

Samsung has their own Hummingbird and Orion SoC's so it's unlikely they would be using Tegra in any of their devices.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Not too surprising. Didn't Nvidia and Apple have a falling out? I'm sure Nvidia would be saying the same thing about Apple's Ipad if they were power the graphics in those. Nvidia keeps Tegra alive despite it's lack of use because the upside is so huge if it gets used.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Can someone explain to me what "taking integration to a whole new level means"?

How will Nvidia ARM designs be an improvement over the competition?

Nvidia's Tegra is supposed to be better with video playback. The problem is other groups like Marvell have triple & quad core ARM CPUs. While Snap Dragons are very fast and I think they’re cheap. The only thing Tegra 2 really excels at is power suck and not in a good way.

 

[Yuriman]

It would be nice to see gpu acceleration used more in android devices. I hope NV is successful in pushing this.

 

[busydude]

Nvidia keeps Tegra alive despite it's lack of use because the upside is so huge if it gets used.

I see 2011 as a litmus test for Tegra to be succesful, there are a few interesting devices in the pipeline for next year.

 

[ModestGamer]

Power function in an x86 would have to be light years ahead of where it is today. And many of these devices require no backwards compatibility. x86 is going to have a hard time competing with ARM in this space.

Actually its not. The reasons its not is becuase with the next few process shrink the power advantages will be a moot point and the software porting and creation costs will significantly outwiegh the minimal power hit.

when intel and AMD are at 28/22nm it'll be a moot point. Plus with new power saving features and better power gating, they will be able to be control clock and power consumption. Also integrating graphics and most other outboard chips onto one die will drastically reduce power consumption and massively improve perceptual performance.

its the software ecosystem and if the devices are x86 complaint then the x86 ecosystem will simply run on it provided the peripheral chips on the rest of the device are solid.

Your reading the costs of ARM in the wrong way. The cost of ARM isn;t the chip itself or performance/watt. Its about applications. If these devices are x86 then most current software from the desktop space will simply work.

 

[Genx87]

Actually its not. The reasons its not is becuase with the next few process shrink the power advantages will be a moot point and the software porting and creation costs will significantly outwiegh the minimal power hit.

when intel and AMD are at 28/22nm it'll be a moot point. Plus with new power saving features and better power gating, they will be able to be control clock and power consumption. Also integrating graphics and most other outboard chips onto one die will drastically reduce power consumption and massively improve perceptual performance.

its the software ecosystem and if the devices are x86 complaint then the x86 ecosystem will simply run on it provided the peripheral chips on the rest of the device are solid.

Your reading the costs of ARM in the wrong way. The cost of ARM isn;t the chip itself or performance/watt. Its about applications. If these devices are x86 then most current software from the desktop space will simply work.

Not buying an x86 APU will rival ARM in power due to its built in complexity. Second I am not buying into tablet and smaller devices require the kind of backwards compatibility we see on the desktop. Android OS and the iPhone\iPad are proving that every day.

 

[ModestGamer]

Not buying an x86 APU will rival ARM in power due to its built in complexity. Second I am not buying into tablet and smaller devices require the kind of backwards compatibility we see on the desktop. Android OS and the iPhone\iPad are proving that every day.

you are entitled to your falsely held assumptions. Do you know why windows has 90% of the desktop and enterprise market ?

Backwards compatability.

No vendor wants to write new apps everytime some dipshit decides to design some new hardware.

Windows will make a big surge into this area with intel and amd APU devices and the marketing slogan will be something along these lines.

Better then the Ipod and all your windows programs work to.

Better belive thats a EXTREMLY strong selling point.

Especailly in the enterprise market where we have big investments in specific programs to run our bussiness. If they can make these cheap enough they will likely make a big dent in client and thin client workstation type applications.

Believe it.

but your entitled to your opinion., regardless of how poorly concluded it is.

 

[Genx87]

you are entitled to your falsely held assumptions. Do you know why windows has 90% of the desktop and enterprise market ?

Backwards compatability.

You do realize we arent talking the desktop and enterprise market right????????

No vendor wants to write new apps everytime some dipshit decides to design some new hardware.

Do you think all of those apps on the iPhone and Android OS are written by large vendors? That is my point.

Windows will make a big surge into this area with intel and amd APU devices and the marketing slogan will be something along these lines.

Windows Mobile has been a complete and utter disaster of an attempt at the mobile space.

Especailly in the enterprise market where we have big investments in specific programs to run our bussiness. If they can make these cheap enough they will likely make a big dent in client and thin client workstation type applications.

Believe it.

but your entitled to your opinion., regardless of how poorly concluded it is.

On the enterprise level we already have non-microsoft OS run devices in Blackberry, Iphone\iPad, and Android devices. They is not backwards compatibility and they sell just fine. In fact they are destroying Windows Mobile on this front. What marketshare does Microsoft hold in this space? Oh nothing worth talking about.

http://wmpoweruser.com/windows-mobile-hits-3-market-share-windows-phone-7-expected-to-do-better/

 

[taltamir]

you are entitled to your falsely held assumptions. Do you know why windows has 90% of the desktop and enterprise market ?

user friendliness and software compatibility... people don't like having to use command line tools and recompiling their kernel.

Backwards compatability.

Windows has atrocious backwards compatibility.

No vendor wants to write new apps everytime some dipshit decides to design some new hardware

What did they ever do to you that you cuss them out like that? porting isn't as difficult as you make it to, and those new architectures allow for massively better performance and battery life, which is why everything BUT the CPU is x86.

 

[Dribble]

It's wrong to say that it's easier to use x86 because all the software has already been written for that. All the software for tablets + smartphones - the hundreds of thousands of apps and the OS are written for ARM. That's not going to change now - even Intel won't be able to bully there way into this arena.

The other big difference is ARM is open. From intel you have to buy a chip + motherboard, or perhaps in future a pre-done soc. From arm you buy a cpu design - you can make whatever soc you want with that. If you want you don't even need to buy a cpu design, you can build your own version under license. Intel would never accept that way of working - right now they won't even license x86 for anyone to design their own cpus, let alone actually giving out their cpu designs.

Then you get onto the fundamental inefficiencies of x86 brought about by it's long history of backward compatibility. As we saw with larrabee it just can't be made to compete against these more focused designs.

As for nvidia and tegra. Well they seem to be doing the right things and trying really hard to break into this market, I would expect them to succeed in the end.

 

[railven]

I see 2011 as a litmus test for Tegra to be succesful, there are a few interesting devices in the pipeline for next year.

Wow on that link you posted I found this article:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27496

Apparently there were an exceptionally large number of returns and customer complaints on a number of different issues. According to other comments sluggish performance - despite the dual-core CPU running Android 2.2 - poor build quality, a lacklustre screen and the absence of both Flash and the Android Marketplace - both of which were promised at launch - were the most commonly cited problems.

I would love to know what "sluggish" means. I have a Samsung Vibrant smartphone which runs on the Hummingbird 1ghz chip and that thing is fast.

That isn't very comforting to read. I'm in the market for a Tablet, and if I read that I'd wait for the Samsung ones.

 

[ModestGamer]

Some of you guys are off in fantasy land. The new low power APU products based on x86 will be moving into the arm terrirtory with the exception of phones and I will take a bet that at the next node shrink to 28nm the new bobcat will be in phones to.


Some of you guys are off your rockers thinking that linux is a great OS and its current sucess in phone will be replaced with cheap low power integrated MCU type APU devices where everything is on one die.



BTW Windows has the best backwards compatability out of every OS on the market today.

Belive it.

x86 wether we like it or not, will continue to grow.

 

[taltamir]

Some of you guys are off your rockers thinking that linux is a great OS and its current sucess in phone will be replaced with cheap low power integrated MCU type APU devices where everything is on one die.

Linux on the phone? where?

Also, your comments are veering very close to flaming and personal insults. I don't think you are quite there but you are certainly being insulting, rude, and condescending. Please don't do that, there is no need or call for that in a debate between smart adults.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Linux on the phone? where?

Seriously? Android OS uses a modified Linux kernel, and is closing in on 50% market share.