RaspBerry Pi(e) Model C (imaginations & wants)

RaspBerry Pi Model C

We all have made these dreams about a device that comes with things we need and want on board, but the chances to a dream as such to come true is one on a billion, not only because we all individuality need and want different things from our personal computer but because the primary goal of a device like that, is, the "low cost" (*for it's capabilities)...
What if a "low cost" device as such one day become a high end system with both our needs and wants, our dreams and hopes "come true" (*in average)?

"The RaspBerry Pi Model C"
or the RaspBerry Pi that respects not only "us (*the community)" but itself too

May i introduce you to the High End RaspBerry Pi (the wants end the logic behind the needs):
01]Processor: ARM based, "any" Dual Core
(Quad will be faster but more expensive i suppose, the magic is to find the thin line between cost and hardware and do not cross it, a dual core processor will be exactly right at this time i speak...).
02]RAM: 2GB "general DDR"
(The leap from 250mb to 525mb was good but not enough to unlock the capabilities of device like that, the most of the users are programmers, ram is the key of compiling, even android that has no IDE support, has 1 or 2Gb or ram...).
03]Graphic Chip: Dual/Quad Core with Latest OpenGl Support
(It depends on the capabilities of the individual chip, the 720p/1080p/4k play-ability, things move fast in the rest of the world, why don't we?...).
04]LAN: 10/100 AND 1000 of course
(Many people use raspberry as a download center, internet gets faster and faster why not we?...).
05]WIFI: Build in Wifi with protocols g/b/n
("For those who hate cables", or made raspberry a portable device, or for the inconvenience of it's place in the house...).
06]BlueTooth: Build in BlueTooth 4.0
(From headsets to mouse and keyboards, from sound systems to transfer music files, "from dusk till dawn"...).
07]"HardDisk": SD/SDHC/SDXC
(Maybe a second input too, for dual boot between the two goals of the system, programming and the playback center...).
08]HDMI: Yes.
(With latest protocols so the bit-rate be as lossy as possible...).
09]Audio Jack & Mic (separate): Yes
10]S/pdif: Yes
(You have made a device that can play with xbmc (that supports true-HD and Master audio formats) 1080p video (.mkv) and you had no output (except from the use of an external audio card) to play at least 5.1 channels, MUST!!!...).
11]USB: 2xUSB2 & 2xUSB3
(Two for lower battery consumption and use for keyboard and mouse (etc) and two or at least one for great transfer rate with usb3 hard disk drives and use3 sticks...).

Why to think of ruspberry pi as a device for education only and not as a device that can used for three main reasons, from three different types of people...

A]Common-User: Surfing, Browser_Gaming and Download.
B]Media-User: 720p/1080p/4k Video playing with 5.1 surround channels at least.
C]Programmer-User: An indie developer with not a great budget that needs a personal computer, easy to transfer and setup anywhere and everywhere, with the power that it is enough to support the indie-retro kind of gaming style...

*With these three types of users you have the market!!!

*Support those that support you... We are one, we must be one, community and you... If you make a device that for-fills our needs then the "game" is yours...
I believe that the composing of a device as such (the one i described) is not a difficult task, you will say that the cost will be greater of course, but we know...

We are college students, we are fathers, we are software developers, we are game developers, we are everyday users, we are high end freaks with 7.1 audio channels and a denon system of 2000$, we are engineers, we are your market only if you be out provider...

Sincerely Argiris Pentalios.
email: anacronphoenix@gmail.com

This has been done to death several times - do a search
you can get all this now...
it will cost you though [but not that much]

the raspberry pi foundation next task is to produce camera and screen

also do the education end <- this is what they want to do this is the aims of the foundation not bringing multi core power to the masses for cheap...

How can i get all this?

all - via the magic of e-ponies or via an x86 motherboard see intels new NUC
other things to look at can be found
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=22288

Man NUC must be awesome, thank you very much!!!

Man NUC must be awesome, thank you very much!!!

Intel's NUC has a power draw of up to 65W. That's very bad compared to the pi's maximum of 5W.

NUC just shows that Intel is flailing around to find a solution to their X86 problem....

65W for an 'embedded' type of device? LOL!

No thanks.

Why to think of ruspberry pi as a device for education only and not as a device that can used for three main reasons, from three different types of people...

1. The Foundation has an established purpose. I can't speak to UK practice, but in the US a Not for Profit organization that gets tax breaks is supposed to only do things that support its stated goals. The stated goal of the Foundation is education.

2. If you try to be all things to all people, not only do you get specification creep, but you wind up with a device that will do anything, but it won't do any of them very well. Efforts get scattered in all directions and the whole project loses focus.

There are two realistic approaches to what you want:

Go out and find a system that does what you want (the NUC was suggested, but the shortcomings of that device have been noted).

Develop your own solution.

The truly unique thing the Foundation has done with the Pi is get a general purpose computer on the market with a truly minimal cost. They achieved that by paring away anything that added cost without contributing to the actual goal. Five years ago if you had told people there was a $35 computer coming with the specs the Pi has, you would have been laughed at, and rightly so. The Pi leverages what I used to refer to as "trailing edge tech". That's how you get costs down. Use the tech that is so "old" that it is no longer exciting to anyone, and is so cheap to make that it consists of high-yield commodity parts.

Sales of 1 million units in the first 12 months on the market argues that the Foundation has most certainly done something unequivocally RIGHT.

[Jessie]

Man NUC must be awesome, thank you very much!!!

Intel's NUC has a power draw of up to 65W. That's very bad compared to the pi's maximum of 5W.

NUC just shows that Intel is flailing around to find a solution to their X86 problem....

65W for an 'embedded' type of device? LOL!

No thanks.

Intel has a lot of money. They do have SOCs that will run as low as 8W and blow a R-Pi out of the water. None are too avalible yet but they are getting closer every day. The main thing that will keep them out of this space is price. Check out this Cortex A-15 vs Atom article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown
Intel is always ahead of the competition in regards to process node. I'm no intel fan, in-fact, I would love to see ARM (or anyone else really) shut them down. I worked for them about 9 years back and they were one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with so I hold a grudge against Intel. But intel will never be competitve with ARM on price even after they get power consumption under control. Just look at the price of the NUC it is way out of line, if that had an ARM processor on it the price would be lower and have the ram included.

ASRock Vision HT ..
What's you opinion guys?

ASRock Vision HT ..
What's you opinion guys?

<sensored>! expensive

ASRock Vision HT ..
What's you opinion guys?

That's a different category of device in my opinion.

Its $679.99 on newegg, for that price I'd rather get a mac mini.

Man NUC must be awesome, thank you very much!!!

Intel's NUC has a power draw of up to 65W. That's very bad compared to the pi's maximum of 5W.

NUC just shows that Intel is flailing around to find a solution to their X86 problem....

65W for an 'embedded' type of device? LOL!

No thanks.

Intel has a lot of money. They do have SOCs that will run as low as 8W and blow a R-Pi out of the water. None are too avalible yet but they are getting closer every day. The main thing that will keep them out of this space is price. Check out this Cortex A-15 vs Atom article:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6536/arm-vs-x86-the-real-showdown
Intel is always ahead of the competition in regards to process node. I'm no intel fan, in-fact, I would love to see ARM (or anyone else really) shut them down. I worked for them about 9 years back and they were one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with so I hold a grudge against Intel. But intel will never be competitve with ARM on price even after they get power consumption under control. Just look at the price of the NUC it is way out of line, if that had an ARM processor on it the price would be lower and have the ram included.

Totally agreed about Intel's price. Intel's business model absolutely requires high profit margins per chip, that's how they can keep building new fabs and shrinking the process nodes.

But the problem for intel is, they *may* provide SLIGHTLY better performance at similar power levels, but at 20x the cost. Meanwhile, its not like intel is the only game in town that is shrinking their process nodes, I am sure TSMC and others are trying to get down to 11nm and below...

An interesting note from that article is that the Atom chip mentioned uses an imagination technologies GPU, not an Intel one. That tells me they couldn't scale down their own iGPU for whatever reason.

Also, I found it somewhat amusing that intel is mandating that haswell ultrabooks MUST support touchscreen displays, period. Intel is trying to clean up Microsoft's mess...

There is one thing that should be realy cheap, have no additional power draw and that I'm realy starting to miss while doing baremetal work:

A reset button.

A on/off button would be nice too.

MfG,
Mrvn

Has been enabled some months ago on the GPIO AFAIK,
search dom's posts.

ghans

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=32435 Power Switch
http://raspi.tv/tag/reset-button-raspberry-pi reset switch <- the reset headers have been available since revision 2 boards

I agree the Pi is primarily for learning and the model B has done a great job. The model A will also find a niche.

For future models, I think a micro SD socket instead of the full size SD socket will be nice so the card won't stick out. It might actually be cheaper too. I'd make that a Model B revision 3 change.

If the model C is going to be a bit beefier, my main addition would be more USB ports, and have at least some of them be able to power e.g. a hard disk. Someone has already suggested this, I'm just saying that would be next on my wish list. I have too many projects in mind that will need a powered USB hub.

An advanced Pi will have a more powerful CPU, though not the most expensive one. Dual core will be great. For education, maybe have a course on multithreading programming?

Maybe a PCi-E expansion slot? Only if there is no licencing fee and it doesn't increase the power draw. It's just that there are lots of fun things you can add: SSD, WiFi, 3G, RAM, GPS, etc. Though you can do all of these with GPIO or USB.

PCI is very rare on ARM. PCI-e ?
I think you want a Intel board ( note the price tag ) ...


ghans

If the model C is going to be a bit beefier, my main addition would be more USB ports, and have at least some of them be able to power e.g. a hard disk.

Why not cut to the chase and simply try to get a SATA connector added?

[Jessie]

While we are adding SATA we may as well add SAS and Thunderbolt.

Joking aside there are SOCs with SATA and PCI implemented but rarely is the feature broken out from the package.

What should the foundation do for the model C? Well naturally what I need and who cares about anyone else. Right now I'm just wishing for more included codecs and a fully implemented GPU accelerated driver set. Why worry about version C? (If a version C will ever exist.) The competition in this space is going to get more feirce every month that goes by. Next year people might not even remember this board. When you have flour, sugar, and butter you just make sugar cookies instead of waiting for chocolate chips to materialize.

If the model C is going to be a bit beefier, my main addition would be more USB ports, and have at least some of them be able to power e.g. a hard disk.

Why not cut to the chase and simply try to get a SATA connector added?

SATA is limited to hard disks. USB is already supported - I'm assuming that it won't add greatly to the cost to bring the power up to spec and add 2 or 4 more USB ports, and then you can connect a hard disk, or a cell phone (while recharging it), a lamp, or any of hundreds of USB devices that need more power than Model B can supply.

Alternatively, maybe someone could make a powered USB hub card that plugs into the Pi, and powers the Pi, and adds 4 more USB ports without using up the 2 on the Pi. I now have to have an external powered hub with one port used to power the Pi, and one Pi USB port used to conect to the hub. I'd like something small and simple. Is that unreasonable?

PCi-E was an afterthought. My thinking was that, like USB, you can get a lot of different modules that you could then just snap in. But that could come in model D or E or F...

If the model C is going to be a bit beefier, my main addition would be more USB ports, and have at least some of them be able to power e.g. a hard disk.

Why not cut to the chase and simply try to get a SATA connector added?

SATA is limited to hard disks. USB is already supported - I'm assuming that it won't add greatly to the cost to bring the power up to spec and add 2 or 4 more USB ports, and then you can connect a hard disk, or a cell phone (while recharging it), a lamp, or any of hundreds of USB devices that need more power than Model B can supply.

The SoC has one, count 'em, one USB port. Adding more USB ports simply funnels more devices through the ONE USB port on the processor, so the *aggregate* data speed is going to be limited to 480Mb/s. Period. You can already have as many USB ports as you want. Just add hubs.

Connecting a disk drive through a USB port, and particularly connecting a "disk drive" that is actually an SSD, throttles data transfer WAY below what an HDD can provide, let alone an SSD. There are SoCs with SATA2...so compare 480Mb/s spread across several devices to 3Gb/s dedicated to a single device.

Thus, in a choice--actually on the board--between additional USB ports or a SATA port, SATA wins, hands down.

Alternatively, maybe someone could make a powered USB hub card that plugs into the Pi, and powers the Pi, and adds 4 more USB ports without using up the 2 on the Pi. I now have to have an external powered hub with one port used to power the Pi, and one Pi USB port used to conect to the hub. I'd like something small and simple. Is that unreasonable?

People are already using powered USB hubs to power Pis. Indeed, you can use a hub to power the Pi through its normal power connector, leaving either both on board USB ports available, or 1 on board USB port plus 3 or more on the hub...giving you a minimum of 4 USB ports. But they're ALL going to connect to the single USB port on the SoC.

If you want a power & USB hub for that acts as a companion board for the Pi...design one (or find someone who will design one for you).

Regarding a possible model C, the cost should be kept low, which limits what can reasonably be added

I've been having a blast playing with my pi's, but I have run into some limitations - which could easily be solved with more USB ports.

1) Lack of WiFi: it is easy to add a dongle, but that leaves only one free USB port (without a hub)

2) Lack of Bluetooth: it is easy to add a dongle, but if you have a WiFi stick, no more USB ports (without a hub)

Oops - no ports left for a wired (or wireless) keyboard/mouse!

Now I realize that a USB hub can be added - and I have them - but it frankly causes an octopus effect - wires multiplying on the desk

As I understand it, the SoC only has one USB port - so what I would ask is that the next model Pi add four downstream port USB hub to it, so that there are four usable USB ports on the Pi PCB.

Like others suggested, it would be nice to have the full size SD socket replaced with a uSD socket, and a wall-wart jack and voltage regulator for using a standard 7-9VDC wall wart would be nice.

If you want the ultimate model C buy an Intel mini-ITX board. The low end ones aren't too expensive and will run a full on Linux distro like Ubuntu convincingly. If you're desperate it could run Windows, although the unholy abortion that windows tends to be become if you use it anywhere the Internet will bring it to it's knees. (Long may it continue, cleaning c**p from pensioners Windows machines feeds my family).

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=47

Oooh look, VGA......

If you want the ultimate model C buy an Intel mini-ITX board. The low end ones aren't too expensive and will run a full on Linux distro like Ubuntu convincingly. If you're desperate it could run Windows, although the unholy abortion that windows tends to be become if you use it anywhere the Internet will bring it to it's knees. (Long may it continue, cleaning c**p from pensioners Windows machines feeds my family).

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=47

Oooh look, VGA......

miniITX boards are still much larger than a pi and most of them have an x86 processor and draw substantially more power. If you want a "better" raspberry Pi I think the Odroid U2 would be a best bet : It's smaller than the Pi (although higher), has a quad core 1.7Ghz ARM CPU, and 2 GB of RAM for 90$...

PS : Your comment about windows made no sense at all. You could just have said "I hate windows" .

You could just have said "I hate windows" .

OK, you win.

I hate Windows.