Intel Analog clone of pi

[Pyrofool]

I'm new to the community, but I have been reading up on the R Pi for some time. As my first forum topic i wanted to ask a simple hypothetical question.

Assuming that you had the know how and the will do do it, what would it take to create an Intel based analog of the R Pi? Think of this as a thought experiment. How much would such a system cost, what would the advantages be? Would it run as smoothly as the R Pi? would it be as small? Would it be worth while in the long run? would you be able to feesibly sell them for $39.99

Taking the specs of the R Pi 2 our goal is to create as closely as possible a computer with the same specs however our computer will be based on Intel instead of ARM. We already know that ARM is better at power management than Intel. This is why ARM is the leader in mobile devices, but can you get comparable performance out if an Intel based system with similar specs?

[mahjongg]

No, something like a PI is only possible by abandoning the restrictions of intel hardware, an X86 based system is not a viable alternative!

[fruitoftheloom]

You may be able to get cheaper than a $140.00 Minnowboard by developing a product around a
http://www.vortex86.com Vortex86 SoC, but to get down to $40.00 is unrealistc afaiac...

[DougieLawson]

What you want is already available (but not for your price).
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... ml#galileo

It costs roughly twice the price of a RPi 2B
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Galileo-G ... B00MTKHIFE

[Joe Schmoe]

Two comments:

1. As others have noted, it is has, sort of, been done, but not for the Pi's price point, nor at the Pi's power consumption levels. I think it is understood that if you want an Intel based board, it's gonna cost more dough and use more amps. That's just obvious.
2. Re: The Gallileo - well, sort of. It's not going to run Windows, and if it doesn't run Windows, why bother? I'm quite serious; the reason to want an Intel based board is to run Windows - if you're just going to run Linux, then the Pi is your guy!.

P.S. I clicked the Amazon (Amazon UK) link you gave for the Gallileo. It said this item can't be delivered to the US. No big deal, but I'm curious as to why this is. Any ideas? Note, BTW, that I have ordered stuff from Amazon UK before; not electronics, but it has never been any problem.

[fruitoftheloom]

What you want is already available (but not for your price).
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... ml#galileo

It costs roughly twice the price of a RPi 2B
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Galileo-G ... B00MTKHIFE

USA pricing for those across the pond not able to find out this information themselves

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Galileo-Boa ... B00MF753JY

[fruitoftheloom]

Two comments:

1. As others have noted, it is has, sort of, been done, but not for the Pi's price point, nor at the Pi's power consumption levels. I think it is understood that if you want an Intel based board, it's gonna cost more dough and use more amps. That's just obvious.
2. Re: The Gallileo - well, sort of. It's not going to run Windows, and if it doesn't run Windows, why bother? I'm quite serious; the reason to want an Intel based board is to run Windows - if you're just going to run Linux, then the Pi is your guy!.

P.S. I clicked the Amazon (Amazon UK) link you gave for the Gallileo. It said this item can't be delivered to the US. No big deal, but I'm curious as to why this is. Any ideas? Note, BTW, that I have ordered stuff from Amazon UK before; not electronics, but it has never been any problem.

See above......

[dave j]

P.S. I clicked the Amazon (Amazon UK) link you gave for the Gallileo. It said this item can't be delivered to the US. No big deal, but I'm curious as to why this is. Any ideas? Note, BTW, that I have ordered stuff from Amazon UK before; not electronics, but it has never been any problem.

About a month ago the Arduino guys signed Adafruit as an official manufacturing partner - producing them in the US. So it's probably an 'only sell in your own territories' licensing thing.

[DougieLawson]

About a month ago the Arduino guys signed Adafruit as an official manufacturing partner - producing them in the US. So it's probably an 'only sell in your own territories' licensing thing.

It's more likely the the old dollar prices game, scrub off the dollar sign ($) and replace it with a pound sign (£). There's a lot of electronics that does that. So any USD$100 device costs GBP£100 (USD$160) when it crosses from Leftpondia over the Atlantic to here in Rightpondia.

[Joe Schmoe]

It's more likely the the old dollar prices game, scrub off the dollar sign ($) and replace it with a pound sign (£). There's a lot of electronics that does that. So any USD$100 device costs GBP£100 (USD$160) when it crosses from Leftpondia over the Atlantic to here in Rightpondia.

Which should make them only too happy to sell you one for GBP£100, right?
Why would they want to stand in the way of that?

I was assuming it was some sort of licensing thing; was just curious if anyone here knew the actual details.

[plugwash]

[*] Re: The Gallileo - well, sort of. It's not going to run Windows, and if it doesn't run Windows, why bother? I'm quite serious; the reason to want an Intel based board is to run Windows - if you're just going to run Linux, then the Pi is your guy!.[/list]

Theres a lot of software out there that will run on an intel based linux system (either natively or through wine) but which does not support arm linux systems.

[r4049zt]

Read up twenty year old material about RISC operating systems.
Like the old IBM, the pentium was designed as a commercial chip to do lots of things and to have a few *mistakes* which software firms could rely on being there in all subsequent versions.
The ARM chip was designed by purists to be Turing Complete without mistakes.
Getting either to emulate the other is always going to be a kludge. For example, an Intel designed chip programmed to do something with exceptions to workaround all the mistakes can be programmed to emulate a RISC cpu such as an ARM, but doing so always introduces extra work in the computation so will always cost more (gates, GHz, electricity) than going cleanly to the RISC answer as you'll get from an ARM cpu. Likewise, it is possible to get a quadcore ARM at 0.9GHz to emulate much of what can be done by a quadcore intel chip at <less than 0.8GHz>. But that sort of kludge is not going to work as cleanly as buying a 4.4GHz intel quadcore and running that.

In evaluating what is "better", consider that 4GB of RAM holds exactly as many characters as 2GB, because going over the 2^31 limit necessitates 64-bit addressing and an instant doubling of most requirements for no "improvement". Decreasing the number of applications and services preloaded in "readyboost" from "all" to a user selected list, and from which it is clear whether you are preloading a 400MB wordprocessor or a 256kb text editor might be a better way of reclaiming a GB than going to 64-bit in order to buy lots more memory that anyone is actually using.

[jamesh]

It's worth noting that the amount of processing power per unit area is about the same for ARM and x86...so for an ARM to be equivalent to a Intel chip it would need to be about the same size...

[r4049zt]

That is only so if you count replicating sysmon.exe in and out of cache as processing, with occasional halts to trundle it off up the 240-ohm 200 lines to DDR and back. Personally, I prefer to skip all that waste.

[jamesh]

That is only so if you count replicating sysmon.exe in and out of cache as processing, with occasional halts to trundle it off up the 240-ohm 200 lines to DDR and back. Personally, I prefer to skip all that waste.

?

[Joe Schmoe]

@jamesh:

It is poetry in motion!