Sigma Introduces SMP8642

[chris57]

If that's all then the first thing that will be said by those without internal HDD is 'Why should we pay for a gigabit port when all we do is stream?'

When you think that we have 100mbit now and get 25mb/s gigabit would speed things up for transferring data to an internal HDD but not to gb/s speeds. It may mean that files transfer far quicker but the current rate is OK for me. I wait a couple of mins for a file to transfer that if done via gigabit may take 20 secs or so.

Is that worth $50, and should those that will never see the benefit pay aswell (streamers)?

[daniel_owen_uk]

I am stretching it here, but.... faster buffering?

[Cypheros]

The speed gained by gigabit lan chip whould not be so great. My lan is reaching max 250 Mbit/s over gigabit network card (Realtek) but at the cost of 15 - 20% CPU power from my AMD QuadCore 9950.
I don't believe that the 300 Mhz CPU of the PCH can shovel so fast that you will have a benefit from gigabit lan!
You would need a faster CPU, more cooling, more power, larger mainboard, etc. and it would be more expensive.

It's perfect as it is!

Greetings
Cypheros

[Scottk]

(01-27-2009 12:54 PM)chris57 Wrote:  Doomed to normal ethernet

If anyone can tell me why a gigabit port is needed please do. No BD stream is ever going to need more than 100mbit, no video hardware decoder can decode more than 100mbit. So why pay for a gigabit port?

The Tvix 6500 has a gigabit port and has no advantage at all. In fact it has the disadvantage of requiring Cat6 wiring IIRC.

Wow, talk about misinformation!

You do NOT need cat6 cabling for Gigibit connections!

It is recommended for long runs that start to get towards the ~100 meter limitation of Ethernet.
For short runs, cat5e and even regular cat5 cable is fine.

As for why gigibit...

Its NOT about how fast decoders can run!
Its all about bandwidth usage, eliminating the network as a source of delays, and caching of data.

The more amount of the data can get across the link in a given time, the less often the PCH would have to request data from the remote file server, as well as having more data available "cached", in case of network collisions or lost packets.

A similar scenario would be the burning software before the days of "BurnProof".
The faster the hard drive was and the bigger the cache, the easier it was to buffer up data, as to not cause buffer underruns.

BTW, gigibit ports are cheap, cheap, cheap.

Finally, the PCH does market itself as a possible NAS device. This is yet another reason for Gigabit.
I find it in its current form, as utterly unacceptable as a NAS, specifically because of its speed of serving up files.

[chris57]

IIRC stands for 'If I Remember Correctly', so if someone puts that at the end of a sentence it means they are not entirely sure but recollect it. So to then jump down someone's throat accusing them of misinformation is immature.
The Tvix 6500 has an onscreen message to use cat6 cabling as its gigabit:-
http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?name=...at6#134313
I am NOT talking about networking in general and cabling and gigabit, im talking specifically about media players and their use.

If you look at the BD Prime players they charge an extra $50 for gigabit, which is what Daniel and I were discussing.

We were also discussing why should those without the need for any storage, so just streaming, pay the extra required for gigabit? Simple answer is they shouldn't, it's like asking everyone to pay for wireless when only some will ever use it. Your needs make you fall into the camp that would like everyone to pay for gigabit connection.

[alanh]

The 8634 series will never be able to fully saturate 100 Mbps ethernet; let alone GigE. Sigma planned GigE for the 8654 and up but scrapped it when their investigation to try and split parts of the Linux networking stack to run on the ancillary IPU processor (another MIPS 4k) fell apart. I still think a MIPS 24K at 500 MHz and up may be limited by 100 Mbps. But the decision probably came down to a cost vs gain marginalization. It likely would have cost Sigma more to integrate GigE in IP form directly in the silicon than an OEM including a cheap PCI GigE MAC with the 865x series (864x chips lack PCI).

So don't start the Chicken Little talk just yet.

[emveepee]

A new SoC from Intel the CE 3100 is also get an appealing alternative

http://download.intel.com/design/celect/...-brief.pdf

Martin

[Trollslayer]

(01-27-2009 06:22 PM)emveepee Wrote:  A new SoC from Intel the CE 3100 is also get an appealing alternative

http://download.intel.com/design/celect/...-brief.pdf

Martin

That is a chipset, you still need a Celeron etc. around it.
There are other chips around from Broadcom, Connexant, ST etc. but to be honest I can't see any reason to leave Sigma behind on this.
If you were starting a new family of products fine, look at alternatives.

[emveepee]

No if you read the link that is a SoC, it has an 800 Mhz Pentium M core.

If you read mpcclub.com, Hi-Jack passed on a comment (rumour?) that TL the CEO of Syabas is considering alternate chips.

Martin

[jk21]

I was refering to the NEC alternative chip

[Trollslayer]

(01-27-2009 11:17 PM)emveepee Wrote:  No if you read the link that is a SoC, it has an 800 Mhz Pentium M core.

If you read mpcclub.com, Hi-Jack passed on a comment (rumour?) that TL the CEO of Syabas is considering alternate chips.

Martin

If volumes are high enough I could put in a work at work

[digicool]

(01-27-2009 05:31 PM)alanh Wrote:  The 8634 series will never be able to fully saturate 100 Mbps ethernet; let alone GigE.
So don't start the Chicken Little talk just yet.

Hmm... what % of the 100Mbps is actually availabe for movie data after the header and other overheads. I remember estimating about 45 Mbps could be the possible best available sustained tput off of a 100Mbps link.

Now, I agree its not common that BD movies have 45Mbps sustained bitrate. But a home network could get fairly loaded reducing the net available BW for NMT purpose which can then cause movie stutter. Thus with 100BaseT, I may not be able to play my BD backup from that media server to my NMT without any stutter.

[jerseyjoe123]

One benefit of a Gigabit ethernet adapter is the ability to use Jumbo frames. Many NAS devices come with Gigabit adapters with Jumbo frame support. The result is faster data transfers for copying data to and from an internal HDD, and reduced media player CPU utilization between the CPU and the network adapter.

My entire home network is Gigabit wired (all routers, switches, PCs, and NASes), except for the PCH. Because of that, I can't enable the Jumbo Frames capability for any of my systems as the PCH is the weak link in the chain.

[alanh]

(01-28-2009 05:26 AM)digicool Wrote:  But a home network could get fairly loaded reducing the net available BW for NMT purpose which can then cause movie stutter.

As long as you are using a switch with an overall switching capacity greater than 100 Mbps, the traffic going to/from the NMT should be isolated and free to run as fast as the NMT can send/receive.

(01-28-2009 05:48 AM)jerseyjoe123 Wrote:  One benefit of a Gigabit ethernet adapter is the ability to use Jumbo frames.

Good point and reason enough to add a PCI GigE port on future NMTs.