[Arm-netbook] Rpi vs cortexA8

[Gordan Bobic]

On 06/03/2012 12:34 PM, Enrico wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Gordan Bobic<gordan at bobich.net>  wrote:
>> On 06/03/2012 12:21 PM, Tsvetan Usunov, OLIMEX LTD wrote:
>>>> the Cortex A8 however was *not* designed by ARM.  it was designed
>>>> based around a streamlined pipeline architecture (Harvard
>>>> Architecture) right from the word go, by a VC-funded team in Austin,
>>>> Texas, that ran out of money.  when they ran out of money they
>>>> approached ARM and asked them if they'd like to buy the company, which
>>>> they did, because ARM's own design was so shit.
>>>
>>> then who made A9?
>>> our developers say A9 is significant faster than A8 at same clocks
>>
>> IIRC A9 is essentially an A8 with out-of-order execution added. That
>> might gain you maybe another 15-20%, depending on how good your compiler is.
>
> and SMP support (dual, quad...i don't know what's the limit).

IIRC A9 is designed for dual core out of the box, but some vendors have 
made their own quad implementations (e.g. Tegra3). A15 is supposed to be 
designed for quad from the start.

Gordan