Transmeta's New Smaller, Faster Chips Announced 235
billstewart writes "Transmeta announced their new 5900 and 5700 CPUs. They're 50% smaller than the 5800, intended for low-power, low-heat, high-speed applications, and contain an integrated Northbridge. They're sampling now, production in January 2004, and expect to have a mini-ITX board out in 1Q04. The core chip is a 128-bit VLIW hidden by x86 emulation (as opposed to their new Efficeon, which is 256-bit VLIW.) The difference between the 5900 and 5700 seems to be L2 cache size.
There are several other stories on Google News."
Re:Care? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wanted (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Care? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Native code? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a potentially advantageous strategy because it allows them to make rather major design changes to their chips relative to other manufacturers. Whether it will actually pan out or not is another matter.
Anyway, long story short: Transmeta chips are designed to emulate; they are not designed to run native code (err, except the code morphing software itself)
Re:IF... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Care? (Score:2, Informative)
Back on topic; many apps don't need P4's or AMD64 or PPC type horsepower. (I say apps as in embedded usage, not as in mozilla)
Re:Huh?? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Care? (Score:4, Informative)
Not any more. He now works for OSDL
Wrong, he is on sabbtical from Transmeta, he is still officially an employee.
Transmeta in Laptops (Score:5, Informative)
I'd love something with 12hours battery life, regardless of processing speed (granted, anything less than comparable to a 350Mhz x86 would be a bit slow) so I can go outside to code, or to a cafe without having to sit next to a power outlet.
Re:Game performance? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Transmeta rocks. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, its a lot friendlier than all other "big" cpus, but if you use a lot of cpu-power, it still needs >25Watt. Thats a lot more than the whole rest of the system (ok, not if you are dvd-burning while using your mobile geforece 5700 to play doom3 on your 17" widescreen high brighness lcd, but you get the point...)
Of course most of the time you dont need full-power, but still when idling it uses 5-7 Watt, more than the Transmeta with 100% load.
The only problem is that the transmetas have limited performance. While pentium M can deliver in peak situation (but with a lot of power), the transmeta cannot.
And your numbers are from soviet russia, arent they? (IAW: bullshit)
10-20W would be a normal desktop board. 3-8 watt for normal Laptop(with ram, but without fance gfx).
10 Watt for a hd is normal for a 10000rpm 3.5" disc. A 2.5" laptop disc is more likely to use 1.5-3 Watt, if its running at all.
And 20-30 Watt would be a bad 15" or a very good 17" Lcd monitor with 200+ cd/m^2. For a 15" high brightness destop replacement Notebook, 15 Watt, perhaps 20 watt with max brightness.
But your "long running" subnotebook with 10.4" 75cd/m^2 screen wont use much more than 5-7 Watt.
Re:Transmeta rocks. (Score:2, Informative)
The point is made, but the syntax would be "as little power as possible" or even just "minimum possible amount of power".
"not seldom run"
Often run? Again, makes sense, but a bit stiff.
(this is meant as an educational insight, not a slam - I hope you'd do the same for me if I ever posted something in German)
Re:I thought Transmeta was already dead (Score:1, Informative)
I beleive that if you open your laptop you'll find that the CPU is non-socketed. Sockets just add weight after all. Does Transmeta even make socketed CPUs?
Re:Transmeta rocks. (Score:3, Informative)
It is very nice. It has built in Wifi that works with Linux and not to forget the DVD/CD-R/RW which comes in handy for watching DVDs and burning CD-R/RWs. I added a prism54 based pcmcia wlan card so that I can watch the DVDs from my server.
Find out more about Linux on the Lifebook here [greenfly.org] and here [leog.net].
I am using it right now to write this comment, sitting in my chair watching TV.
-parent doesnt know shit. (Score:3, Informative)
Or have you ever seen Ram or 2.5"discs in notebooks with fans? No? Guess why...
If you arent using your "corsair golden eagle fishing thuna blabla 500 ultra pro" overclocker Ram, you can get away with 1-3 Watt for 512 MB RAM in a notebook. At least with 266 Mhz ddr and 256mbit chips.
And modern harddiscs are quite inexpensive, powerwise. Heck, even normal Desktop Drives are rated at about 6-7 Watt. Laptop drives optimized for low power are more likely to use a third of that.
What you fail to recognice is the Screen as single most demanding component besides the cpu. People want bigger and brighter screens, and to create photons you need power. You cant just do a die-shrink like with ram or cpus to reduce the power requirements, you have to live with them. You can get 60 Lumen/W from your flouroszent illumination (but only on your happy day), you block 2/3 of it because you need colour filters, and another 1/3 because absorbtion/ect,and more for the space between the pixels, ect, and you have 10 cd/watt output at most.(in reality it should be even worst. Wall-plug->eye efficiency could be as low as 2-3 cd/watt)
And people like displays with at least 100cd/m^2 because else its unreadable in bright daylight outside.
DO the math....
Re:Transmeta vs VIA C3?? (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't matter much if you are just using it as a gateway I suppose, but if you care about CPU power I would have to assume using it as a desktop was at least mildly important, in which case VIA is far from friendly.
-Eyston
Re:Yes, but what for? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Transmeta vs VIA C3?? (Score:2, Informative)
There is a kernel patch out there that emulates the cmov instruction on the C3 in kernel land.
I had specifics requirements for running vmware and matlab on my C3 mini-itx board (other than lacking the cmov instruction it was great). I applied the kernel patch, but still got core dumps all the time (the applications would actually run now though). I purchased a cheap Athlon and everthing works fine. Note: The new C3's now support the cmov instruction.
Not sure if the transmeta's supports the cmov instruction or is lacking other instructions commonly used when compilers optimize.
Via Mini-ITX solutions; Soekris; Laptops (Score:4, Informative)
If you're looking for a much lower-end solution (e.g. you're running a web server on your DSL line), makes some low-cost little boards, one of which can support laptop hard drives. No graphics, supports a variety of Linux and *BSD operating systems. [soekris.com]
Or you can get a used laptop from eBay or a local used-computer dealer. Power use is low, size is small, operating system support is easy to figure out, and they theoretically have built-in UPSs, though used laptop batteries are often pretty dead. Prop them up for good airflow to avoid heat problems.
Re:Are you surprised? (Score:3, Informative)
You're running what are essentially 4 250- to 300-watt heaters in a small room
A switching power supply responds to loads. It will not provide its maximum rated power unless you load it that heavily.
Your typical PC ( PS, motherboard, processor, ram, video, a card or two, and a couple drives ) these days actually uses ~100w while idiling, and around 150w under extreme load. This would include losses due to power supply inefficiency.
there is also a large amount of it coming from your power supply
The switching power supply itself is quite efficient, compared to a linear regulator. Yes, the power supply has some loss due to efficiency in the conversion, but it's actually quite low, around %10-30 worst case. The transformer is also pertty high efficiency.
Quite a bit of heat is generated.
Yeah, you bet. You think that's something, you should see how much power your monitor sucks up, even if it is an LCD.
Transmeta Blade Servers (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, if what you really want is a quiet desktop, there's a lot to be said for running a single-processor quiet X-Windows screen on your desktop, and if you need more CPU, stick a server in the basement next to the furnace.
Re:Transmeta vs VIA C3?? (Score:4, Informative)
This article [extremetech.com] has some information on upcoming VIA processors/boards. A new processor package that is about the size of a penny, and the nano-ITX board for ultra small devices looks really cool.
But, the thing I want in that article is the proto Dual Processor C5P motherboard [ziffdavisinternet.com], with dual ethernets and a DVI display output. That would make a great little linux server and/or gateway box.
Re:Yes, but what for? (Score:3, Informative)