ARM Motherboards

[jogshy]

I wonder.... how many interesting ARM/tegra desktop motherboards exist?
So far, I've collected from the news some ARM boards:

Panda board ( OMAP4430 dual-core 1Ghz, 1Gb DDR2, PoverVR SGX540 with OpenGL|ES 2, HDMI with audio and DVI, USB2, Ethernet 10/100, SD/MMC card reader ... but no SATA so you need to use the card reader )

pandaboard.org

Nufront NuSmart™ 2816 ( dual core A9 2Ghz, DDR2/3, SATA, USB2, Ethernet 10/100, VGA/HDMI, AC97 audio, SD/MMC reader ... I'm not really sure if this is a motherboard or a complete mini-PC ).

http://www.nufront.com/en/cpzx/eed31...a692f9155.html

TrimSlice ( complete PC, 1Ghz Tegra2, 1Gb DDR2, HDMI with 5.1 audio, SATA with room for a 2.5'' SSD, GigaEthernet, USB2 ):

( photo comparing its size vs a MacMini )
http://trimslice.com


Ideally, I was looking for mini-ITX, uATX or ATX ARM motherboards with support for dual/quad core ARM CPUs, PCI-express 16X, SATA3, USB3 and capacity at least for 8Gb of DDR3 DIMM/SO-DIMM.... so I'm looking for a desktop board like the ones we use traditionally... but using ARM/Tegra instead of AMD/Intel CPUs. The idea is to plug a SSD and a cheap discrete GPU for a mini-ITX HTPC or small-and-efficient PC running Windows or Ardroid.

Do you know if Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, VIA, etc... are developing these kind of motherbards aimed to the desktop market, pls? I bet they're waiting for Windos RT to come ...

[bamtan2]

you are jumping the gun. microsoft and its partners will announce windows 8 hardware when windows 8 is ready. all of it will be newer and better than this stuff. and most of it won't be desktop arm boxes. the arm stuff will be portable computers.

[jogshy]

the arm stuff will be portable computers.

I hope almost some assembler like Asus could make a mini-ITX board so I can make a custom HTPC omg

Btw, I've found this other one:

Raspberry PI, Broadcom BCM2835 700Mhz. 256Mb RAM, SD card, USB2.0, OpenGL|ES and HDMI, Debian/ARM Linux.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

[breakfromyou]

It would definitely be nice to have some Mini ITX boards around for some serious ARM power. Maybe even Micro ATX. I wonder how high they can push clock speeds in order to keep a reasonable TDP? Most of these ARM chips have a TDP of under 10w. What'd a 45w ARM CPU get you? I want one, whatever it might be lol.

It would make a really nice media center box. Hardly using any power or using any heat, able to do everything an x86 box could do (that you'd need at least). Sounds like fun stuff is coming soon. I can't wait.

[lizardmech]

I would rather put linux on these, I would probably buy an ARM motherboard if they were common, don't know why I would possibly want windows on it though.

[s1nykuL]

I would rather put linux on these, I would probably buy an ARM motherboard if they were common, don't know why I would possibly want windows on it though.

Windows is generally for consumers, the users who don't care or want to care what the OS is doing in the background. Users who want everything taken care of and done automatically for them. This is by far the largest market for such devices. Linux is for the rest of us who want total control. I too would put Linux on such a system, infact if a device does not support Linux or some variant I don't want it.

[bamtan2]

It would definitely be nice to have some Mini ITX boards around for some serious ARM power. Maybe even Micro ATX. I wonder how high they can push clock speeds in order to keep a reasonable TDP? Most of these ARM chips have a TDP of under 10w. What'd a 45w ARM CPU get you? I want one, whatever it might be lol.

you're years ahead of reality. arm chips today are aiming for 1W, not 10W. big difference. the only company even TALKING about high power ARM chips is nvidia, and that is just words and a powerpoint.

when windows 8 ships, the only ARM chips will be the ones in phones, and the only ARM apps will be phone apps. so who needs a phone chip on a PC board to run phone software? it doesn't make any sense. you've got a long wait ahead of you.

[lizardmech]

Windows is generally for consumers, the users who don't care or want to care what the OS is doing in the background. Users who want everything taken care of and done automatically for them. This is by far the largest market for such devices. Linux is for the rest of us who want total control. I too would put Linux on such a system, infact if a device does not support Linux or some variant I don't want it.

Wont normal users be confused why their x86 programs don't work. MS can barely sort out the 32bit/64bit switch, I hate to imagine how an entirely different processor type will go.

[undone]

ARM CORTEX A15 maybe arrived in 2012, according to some info dual core A15 is stronger than quad core A9, sincerely waiting this one to replace my old pc.

[qcmadness]

It would definitely be nice to have some Mini ITX boards around for some serious ARM power. Maybe even Micro ATX. I wonder how high they can push clock speeds in order to keep a reasonable TDP? Most of these ARM chips have a TDP of under 10w. What'd a 45w ARM CPU get you? I want one, whatever it might be lol.

It would make a really nice media center box. Hardly using any power or using any heat, able to do everything an x86 box could do (that you'd need at least). Sounds like fun stuff is coming soon. I can't wait.

increase tdp 10 times will not yield 10x performance increase, most likely you will only get 2-4x. still slower than mid-range x86 cpus...

[RVWinkle]

ARM CORTEX A15 maybe arrived in 2012, according to some info dual core A15 is stronger than quad core A9, sincerely waiting this one to replace my old pc.

I would say that by 2013 or 2014 we'll be buying a ton of these. I would have one connected to every TV as a HTPC, one for a NAS, and one for a firewall/gateway/proxy/DNS/whatever. Expect to see a resurgence in car computing too. These low power devices are great for home servers and secondary computing. These certainly won't replace my main desktop because by then we'll all be overclocking 8-10 cores to 6ghz.

[jogshy]

I would rather put linux on these, I would probably buy an ARM motherboard if they were common, don't know why I would possibly want windows on it though.

Put the OS you prefer... but you cannot do that without a SATA port really... and most of the ARM motherboards I've seen use slow MMC cards yet

you're years ahead of reality. arm chips today are aiming for 1W, not 10W. big difference.

Well, one of the advantages of ARM is that their architecture is pretty modular and flexible. If the A9 uses 1W then put togheter 100 cores to get a 100W chip and see how it performs.

increase tdp 10 times will not yield 10x performance increase, most likely you will only get 2-4x. still slower than mid-range x86 cpus...

To run you must first walk I still remember my supercool 16Mhz 386 so imagine....

And just for the records... see Jobs 10 years ago .. think about future Apple's ARM-based laptops:

( 3:01 :p )

[FischOderAal]

I think we're seeing the beginning of this already. OS-X Lion has adapted some "behaviours" of iOS. For instance the scrolling is different. On touch-devices when you scroll down the page moves down, on OS-X Snow Leopard the page moves down when you scroll up. I hope you get what I mean.

Apple is beginning to unify the experience and one day desktop and mobile might merge completely. I think Microsoft is aware of this as well and is working on this. However, the approach is different. Microsoft wants a full desktop experience on their tablets.

[masterg]

those panda boards have been out for years now

[crash5s]

I would say that by 2013 or 2014 we'll be buying a ton of these. I would have one connected to every TV as a HTPC, one for a NAS, and one for a firewall/gateway/proxy/DNS/whatever. Expect to see a resurgence in car computing too. These low power devices are great for home servers and secondary computing. These certainly won't replace my main desktop because by then we'll all be overclocking 8-10 cores to 6ghz.

They are great for primary computing as well. As things stand a dual core is more than enough for most uses. Take away gaming (which is going to die on the PC anyways), 3d animation and heavy video editing... things almost nobody does on their computer, and there is no need for the power we have now.

Smaller form factors, less power is the future. Power hungry large boxes can go the way of the typewriter.

[saaya]

theres almost no hardware to install, almost everything is onboard for arm, so its not really a mainboard... is it?

[jogshy]

Today Canonical will release Ubuntu 11.10 with some ARM support ( I think OMAP3 and 4 ). I wonder which ARM laptops, desktop and server computers will support it... maybe Acer AspireOnes/Asus EEEPCs and some servers like the ZT-systems R1801e ( http://www.ztsystems.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1483 ) or the Excito B3.


Btw, I've found another small ARM-based PC, the Genesi EFIKA MX Smarttop:

( ARM Cortex-A8 800MHz, 3D graphics with HDMI, 512MB RAM, 8Gb SSD, 100Mbut ethernet, usb2.0 )
http://www.genesi-usa.com/products/efika

[jogshy]

Another mini-PC:
FXI Technologies Cotton Candy, based on Samsung Exinos 4210 ( dual Cortex A9 1,2Ghz ) + Mali 400 GPU, 1Gb RAM, USB2.0, running Ubuntu and Android:

[kuroikenshi]

Thank you! Super Lopez!

now that's neat!

[jogshy]

Apparently, another interesting ARM-based mini-PC appeared:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...Client-Sub-200

DevonIT FX1, based on Texas Instrument's 1GHz DM8148 CPU.
( their web's down actually ).

[zanzabar]

TI parts are not compatible with windows mobile, windows phone or windows ce 7 (aka windows 8 arm), it looks interesting though.

[Kai Robinson]

Hate to break it to you, but the Raspberry Pi has nothing to do with Windows 8, and with 128mb of useable memory (128mb allocated to GPU), it never will.

[mstp2009]

Windows 8 = FAIL
Windows 8 on ARM = EPIC FAIL

[BeepBeep2]

No, Windows 8 x86 is fail...Win 8 ARM is probably win.

[kuroikenshi]

^^ although there wont be much support from other software partners initially I firmly believe that Microsoft is realised that they need to join this trend transition. However I also believe that their licensing prices need to come down for the ARM platform, otherwise they will be at a disadvantage when dealing with competitors who give their OS for free or as part of the device (i.e. Android and IOS)