POLL: crypto hardware & Fwd: [Xen-devel] Announce of our Xen project; Routing simulation with Einar (fwd)

[coderman]

On 3/10/06, Damian Gerow <dgerow at afflictions.org> wrote:
> ...
> If you're looking at them, where does the 'Luke CoreFusion processor' fit
> in?  I remember them saying they'd be using Luke in the C7, but I'm hesitant
> to believe the C7 is already viable.

VIA's naming conventions are annoying; some names refer to the whole
proc, some to just part of the core, and some to the whole
CPU/north/south bridge collection.

IIRC Luke is a smaller fab process (the eden-n) with the
faster/improved north bridge support.  it's still the C5P core (two
entropy sources and AES accel.)


> (Actually, something else I'd like to see: A C7 with >4 on-board NICs, or a
> full-size ATX C7.  They make great little routers.)

www.routerboard.com has some PCI quad port NIC's with the same VIA
rhine chips; unfortunately 2 NIC's is the most i've seen ship on the
mini-itx.
(routerboard also has a PCI to 4 x miniPCI adapter that is great for
wireless gear)

i've used the PCI riser/adapter to mount two PCI cards horizontally
off the mini-itx for adding a quad port ethernet (4xtulip) and a quad
mPCI filled with atheros CM9 radios.  best little router you can ask
for, IMHO.


> Hopefully, as there's a C7 line dedicated to mobile computing, someone will
> pick these up.  If not, it's back to the drawing board to make a home-brew
> laptop (assuming the chips -- and ideally even a DP configuration --
> actually show up on the market).

this would be easy (easier at least) with a nano-itx form factor.  i
know they make boards with LVDS video built on, but they seem to be
hard to get ahold of, mainly for OEM applications rather than direct
retail.  it will be interesting to see how this plays out...