On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:56 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>wrote:

> On Fri Jan 28 16:33:03 EST 2011, me@acm.jhu.edu wrote:
> > >
> > > The Tegra is probably one of the best ARM chips out there...
> > >
> >
> > No it isn't; the Tegra lacks NEON.
>
> why do you think simd support is key?  we have simd on x86
> and ignore it.
>  - erik
>

Doesn't matter for Plan 9, its true. I was thinking more generally. For
media stuff or signals stuff, NEON is totally key for these ARM widgets,
even more than x86en, which can muscle by on OOE and chutzpah.

But even disregarding SIMD... the Tegra was based on the ARM11; the ARM11
isn't a terribly competitive core compared to the Cortex A8 in use by many
of the ARMed chips; the A8 was a wider (dual-issue) design with a
lower-power sleep, bigger/faster cache, and a much better branch predictor.
So I'm not sure sure by what metric you'd say "the Tegra is one of the best
ARM chips out there...".

-- vs