[Arm-netbook] The A64-OLinuXino laptop idea

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 9:30 AM, joem <joem at martindale-electric.co.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-11-06 at 18:03 +0100, Paul Boddie wrote:


> Reading the datasheet, the device is capable of addressing 3GB RAM,
> though I am not sure any performance improvements are gained because
> the L1 cache is only 32k :(

 32k data and 32k instruction cache.   i hope that's per core!  and a
L2 512mb... that's not bad.

> With 64 bit words to chew, the cache is only about 4K words.
> Down from the 8K words in a 32 bit ARM  :( :( :(

 weeelll....  at least it still runs 32-bit instructions.  anyone know
if gcc tends to output the lower-sized instructions as a preference
where possible, only running into the newer 64-bit ones when it's
strictly necessary?


> Still, the graphics ought to be quicker with the hardware present
> in the chip and ability to move data in larger chunks.

 yeah MALI400's a bit CPU-intensive, so quad-core should help.

 performance/watt btw, Cortex A15 is down *15 percent* compared to a Cortex A7.


 overall, though: this _is_ a $5 SoC.  you have to expect some level
of "lowliness" :)

l.