Transmeta Astro Processor

simpl3x writes "Apparently, Transmeta's next generation processor was demonstrated to some folks the other day at Comdex. Tom's Hardware was at the demo and they had this to say: "The new Transmeta Astro was faster in every demo that we saw than the Pentium 4m 1.8GHz chip that was in the Sony GRX." Cnet had some information on the processor also . I just ordered a tablet to play with, though I ordered the Fujitsu which has a P3m (the Compaq has a bad screen according to the reviews). I certainly wish that something like this were available, and i do hope that the manufacturing goes smoothly. Mo options, mo better."

Price

[nofx_3]

Does anyone know how this chip will compare in price to amd and intel offerings at the same performance level?

Re:I was lucky enough to see one of these in actio

[wotevah]

I think this CPU is built with low-power consumption as its primary goal and performance second, thus is unlikely that you will see it in high-end desktops. But you might see it in other laptops that will keep running and running after your P4-2Ghz laptop finished your second battery...

Do you have any references on the large amount of system RAM you mentioned is needed for code morphing ? I find it hard to believe that 1) you need that amount of memory for instruction translation and 2) that a hardware device using that much memory to emulate a CPU (at CPU clock speeds) can be too efficient both in terms of performance and heat dissipation.

Benchmarks aside

[Halo-]

Benchmarks aside, I'm really pleased to see what appears to be a serious alternative to Intel and AMD. Just as AMD's success has been good for the CPU market in general a third competitor will almost certainly lead to improvements across the board.

The Crusoe is cool, but since it is sorta a "niche" product, it never really got the penetration I had hoped to see. Hopefully Astro will be viable as an option for main-line PC makers. (IBM, Dell, etc...)

Re:desktops??

[Monkelectric]

Id love one on the desktop if the performance is good. Less power = less cooling = less noise! We had a power out here about two weeks ago, and for 10 blissfull minutes, none of our 5 tvs were on, none of *7* computers were on. I think until that moment, I had forgotten what silence sounded like. I like quiet :)

Laptops

[madsenj37]

Although chips are getting faster and faster people seem to forget that most people dont use a laptop as a portable supercomputer. The average user is gonna write papers and browse the web or soem kind of business application ... not that they wont do other things, but the fact is a laptop was never meant to replace the desktop market. Transmeta not only gives intel competetion, but they assure the consumer that intel will have to do at least a little innovation to make their product worthy. A chip that is fast enough for non video games and has an extended battery life compared to ther brands is a good thing. It is what the goal of laptop makers should be. gaming on a laptop is teh niche market, and thats what alienware computers are for.

Re:Another good idea lost

[fliplap]

it essentially makes them little more than second-rate Athlon imitators which incidentally happen to consume a little less power.

I'm sorry, could you link us to the stats that show the AMD Athlon uses less power than this new transmeta chip?

Unless of course you worded that very badly and you mean that the transmeta consumes less power. In that case, you have to remember, this is NOT an athlon competitor, its competing with the P4m and P3m. Does AMD even have a decent mobile chip?

Now that we're done with that point, let's move on to the next point, about code-morphing and talking about changing the chip "to a PowerPC, MIPS, or SPARC-compatible chip in seconds" For one thing, assuming you would want todo this in a laptop, can you even imagine the problems with hardware? Can you point me to a motherboard, video card, sound card, or heck, even recent ram manufacturer that makes one component that works on x85,PPC,SPARC and MIPS platforms? Exactly, it would be a complete pain in the ass. As for embedded developers, they would face the same problem, I can't recall many recent embedded products. Chances are they've built that much on a simulator before they start purchasing chips anyway, they know what they need.Forget using it "as a testbed for new ideas" again, do it in simulation.

Transmeta "abandoned" the technology because it posed no benefit to thier target market. People have already thought of all of your ideas, and if they were feasible they would have been done. Should I just assume you were trolling?

Multiple architectures turns out to be very hard.

[Christopher Thomas]

Support for new instruction set extensions like SSE or MMX could be added with a simple firmware upgrade. A new code-morphing frontend could turn the Crusoe from an x86-compatible chip to a PowerPC, MIPS, or SPARC-compatible chip in seconds

This turs out to be much more difficult than it first appears. There are a number of low-level architectural features - especially in the memory interface, but elsewhere too - that are very difficult to emulate if you've built a processor using different assumptions. This means that while you might be able to emulate a PPC/MIPS/SPARC on a Crusoe - or even on a PC - by dynamically recompiling code, the only architecture that would perform well would be one with a good match to your actual hardware. The original Crusoe chips were designed from the start to emulate Intel processors, and this new chip is presumably in the same boat.

Whee

[Konster]

Not that I really doubt Transmeta, but a closed system running benchmarks? Who is to say that they weren't running a P4 and not an Astro? And what do they mean by faster than a 1.8 GHZ mobile Intel chip? Faster than what? Some weird benchmark devised by some marketing department that no one has access to? Whithout specs, this whole thing is a wash.

Re:I was lucky enough to see one of these in actio

[ealar dlanvuli]

The 'code morphing' technology also uses an astonishing amount of ram, up to 64mb in some cases, so linux users who need all that ram for gnome should steer clear of this chip



For power desktop use forget about using this chip,

Professional Journalist

Repeat after me everybody. "YHBT"

Re:I was lucky enough to see one of these in actio

[catenos]

I am sad that I have no moderator points currently. That is as much troll as it can get.
Well, in order to reduce the chance that anybody believes that stuff...

The lack of sse2 support greatly hindered this chip in any fps demo [...] can only run at agp 2x, which again can hinder game performance.

It obviously did not occur to you that Transmeta chips are mainly for notebooks and notebooks usually are not intended for heavy gaming. And so, that Transmeta maybe is not targeting power gamers.

Btw, such a notebook would be more usable for games than my desktop PC (Athon 700, 256MB) - and I have no problems with current games regarding a GeForce 4200 64MB.

it was quite unstable, requiring a reboot in windows98se after just 2 hours

Using Window98SE as reference platform for CPU stability. *rotfl*

Aside from that, the chip is in development. Ever heard that this may mean that it may be more unstable than the final version?

I have also heard, from reliable sources

I hope that they are not as reliable as the conclusions in your posting.

For power desktop use forget about using this chip

Who claimed that it is intended for power desktop use. Well, however, you may have found the single one usage it is not applicable resp. thought for.

Re:What's the air veocity of an unladen P4M?

[Mark (ph'x)]

Funny, I oft hear other people complaining about how pro-intel THG is.

In fact THG is accused of being pro-everything while simultaneously being anti-every-same-thing. It must be quite difficult to maintain this image.

Guess it comes with the territory of being a popular hardware site and having to make calls that no everyone agrees with. * takes a long hard look at amd-die-hards.. intel-die-hards.. linux/windows/mac/emacs/tcl-die-hards *

Enjoy trolling, AC, at least I have the guts to risk moderation :P

If MS, Intel and AMD ever really do Palladium...

[SwedishChef]

Watch for Transmeta to go through the roof in sales! They will be one of the few chipmakers who will be able to run open source operating systems and MS is gonna make them all rich if Palladium is really implemented.

And from what it looks like with these chips, moving to TM chips won't be any hardship at all.

Re:what about compatibility?

[psamuels]

I remember that the old Cyrix 6x86 chips didn't emulate the complete x86 instruction set, so many common programs would crash or just plain not run. It seems like transmeta is trying to go the same route, by reverse-engineering Intel's instruction set.

Eh, but I bet there are very few people in the world (outside Intel Corp) that know the IA32 instruction set better than Transmeta's favorite poster boy, Linus. The guy's amazing, as if I had to mention that here. With people like him on board, I bet TMTA can do a pretty good bug-for-bug rendition of a P4. And hey, if not, it's just a firmware update, right?

Actually these days I think chipset issues (OS drivers and hardware bugs) are a lot bigger problem than CPU support. Chipset, mobo and BIOS vendors all seem to have major QA problems and woe to the OS that doesn't work around them all properly.

Re:I was lucky enough to see one of these in actio

[Ninja Programmer]

The lack of sse2 support greatly hindered this chip in any fps demo, where it was brutalized by the p4 (I'm sure even an amd athlon could beat it under those conditions!).

Why do uniformed people open their mouths about processor capabilities? Athlons are not worse than the P4, and especially not worse where SSE is concerned. Whether or not an FPS is slow is not necessarily due solely to SSE support. For example, none of Id software's games have ever supported the SSE instruction set.

Re:If MS, Intel and AMD ever really do Palladium..

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, I just read the other day that AMD are going
to support palladium and was lamenting possibly
having to save up for a SUN box... but now I
have another alternative.

phew!

and then there's Macs - I have just checked and
it looks like they could possibly be another haven
for people with a brain - unless they are forced
to implement it by US laws.

Re:If MS, Intel and AMD ever really do Palladium..

[fferreres]

Either expect to see Palladium and non Palladium versions for years, and the non-Palladium beign more expensive and unable to run certain "media" features or expect it to be mandated by law.

Companies are no stupid, especially the ones that are in a fast moving industry and have proved to survive for at least 20 years.

College kids

[Jester99]

... often do replace their desktop with a laptop.

We have limited desk space for big monitors. And lots of us like to take a computer to class with us to take notes on, etc. Many people plug their laptop into the wall and use it as their primary computer as well. And do [try to] play games on them, etc.

So even if "most people" don't use them as portable supercomputers... plenty do.