On 2/20/07, Thomas E. Spanjaard <tgen@netphreax.net> wrote:
> > There are many such embedded/small-CPU devices (not just for VPN, mind
> > you) that need low power consumption, which is certainly not an
> > amd64-type-CPU strong suit.  A CPU of the power you mention is a *very
> > very bad* fit here; typically these machines are 486 or Pentium-II
> > generation at best.  It's like comparing pears vs. tangerines, or
> > something like that.
>
> I'm left wondering what use PCI64/66 is there then? Sure, there are SoCs
> with PCI64/66 buses (Intel/Marvell?), but I haven't seen any solution
> where they offer that as PCI slot, save a couple of development boards.
> Is that perhaps what you're referring to?

For a card with a bus interface of that type, I'd hope that the card
is typical PCI64 in that it will work properly in 3.3V PCI32 slots.

That aside, yes, I would expect that some embedded systems will start
to grow 64-bit PCI over the next few years, but it seems a bit further
off before we see Intel or AMD pushing the power consumption of their
high-end CPUs really far down.  (Yeah, batteries in the newer dual
core laptops are suffering, but "who cares" in their eyes?  ;)

> The X2 3800+ EE (35W, dualcore) chip might come close if running at its
> lowest powernow/cnq speed/voltage, though that's just the CPU then ofcourse.

Right, whereas I mean *really* low power systems for truly embedded
usage.  In the NetBSD world, that's a much larger % of users than in
the rest of the OS worlds.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com> <todd@vierling.name>