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Comment Re:$454 million?? (Score 1) 196

Yes, Melbourne is bigger, but that doesn't excuse the budget blowout (budgeted at $450M, ended up costing over $1.5B) and it is still being rolled out despite being originally scheduled for March 2007. It is also extremely unreliable and there's no way for tourists to get temporary tickets. It would have been cheaper for the government to just scrap ticketing altogether and provide free public transport. Or just leave things as they were with the older ticketing system and send a rover to Mars.

Comment Re: I sure hope this means... (Score 1) 150

ARM is capable of performing at or near Jaguar levels.

That's something you are going to have to back up.

Comparison here. Okay, so the gap is a bit bigger than I remembered, but it's still in a similar ballpark. Unfortunately I couldn't find a more exhaustive comparison between them right now.

There's plenty of games out there already for iOS/Android so the architecture isn't a roadblock.

Plenty of games out there for 68K too. That does not mean it is as capable is x86. I do not care what games you play on your phone. They are not the same class as big PC games like Half Life. It is a simple fact that x86 has more raw power than ARM. There is no technical reason ARM could not be improved to a point that it is as powerful as x86 but it is not there now.

Architecture is a roadblock when one architecture provides serious performance gains.

Is Battlefield 3 on Tegra 5 capable enough for you?

Comment Re: I sure hope this means... (Score 1) 150

NVIDIA doesn't have the option to make an x86 chip because they don't have a licence. ARM is capable of performing at or near Jaguar levels. Tegra 5 with Kepler graphics isn't exactly a secret.

Remember how well Cell worked out for IBM and Sony?

The Cell is not a general purpose chip. ARM is. There's plenty of games out there already for iOS/Android so the architecture isn't a roadblock.

Comment Re: I sure hope this means... (Score 1) 150

There's nothing stopping NVIDIA creating a SteamBox using a Tegra with a massive GPU.

There's two things. First, no ARM core would keep up with it. Second, the IP for their massive GPUs is laden with agreeements with assholes like Microsoft.

I disagree. If 8 Bobcat derived cores can handle the PS4/XBox One, then a collection of high end ARM cores can handle a decent GPU (doesn't need to be Titan level). Also, NVIDIA already have their Kepler cores freed up for licensing so that won't be a roadblock for integrating with ARM.

Comment Re: I sure hope this means... (Score 1) 150

There's nothing stopping NVIDIA creating a SteamBox using a Tegra with a massive GPU. The architecture doesn't make much difference when you need to recompile anyway (unless there's hand-tuned assembly, but that's not insurmountable). Why would NVIDIA do this? Because they're not in any of the big consoles, they don't have an x86 license, but they do have an ARM license. They've even shown a tendency to go this way with NVIDIA SHIELD.

Comment Re:I don't care (Score 1) 532

That's the definition I'm using. There is no essential worth to gold that exceeds any other material. It's too soft and heavy for tools, so it's "value" is generally driven because it's shiny, and that isn't "essential" value, but subjective and transient.

It has useful properties in electronics (high conductivity and corrosion resistance) and is fairly rare. That makes it valuable.

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