Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
Our devices have the ability to be stable at 900+MHz.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

for the battery life....
dude,theres a hack that makes the n900 1000 mhz, but the battery life becomes bad

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

how much more power do they consume at 900MHz? How much heat is produced?

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Because the CPU used is only rated for use at a maximum of 600Mhz. That's basically it. It's the safest option because they are guaranteed that every single CPU will run at that clock speed for at least a certain amount of time. I, for example, can't run at 900Mhz; so having a default speed of that would be great fun for someone like me :P

Be thankful you have such an open device that lets you overclock so freely :P

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Actually, battery consumption doesn't get affected as much as you make it sound like... And Nokia has to comply with the CPU manufacturer's instructions... they can't go ahead and sell yolu an overclocked CPU when the manufacturer says that by overclocking the CPU more than X amount of MHz the life span is going to be shorter + there's the risk of damaging the device...

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

why do u realy think they do !!
i guess they want there device to be slow and slagy :D
as for the statment " Our devices have the ability to be stable at 900+MHz. " .. yes you have flashed the 900mhz kernel and yes the cpu SOMETIMES hit that speed , and still works .
the question is FOR how much can it run at 900mhz without causing any real problems ? to the cpu or any of the other circuits in there ..
remember various components are in a very tight space and with no air vents of any kind , so overheating may be an issue here.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Well, not really. It's not specifically due to battery life IMO.
Faster cpu means it spends less time at high frequency.
Even konttori said it may actually not use more battery.
Also, during idle, it doesn't use a single bit of extra juice.

btw, Samsung uses the identical omap3430 at 800Mhz.
I think Nokia took the safe route by clocking it 600Mhz.
Maybe it costs them less buying them at such spec. :p

Either way. It's not Nokia's fault.

ALL hardware has an amount of extra tolerence that it can handle.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

The main reason cpu's are run at a given safe speed is because the manufacturer does not want to risk return problems especially on a new device, also the pcb is only capable of so much heat before it twists and starts to malfunction.
Every manufacturer in the world today plays it safe and well within the specs of components and motherboards basically to make production costs as cheap as possible in order NOT to have a massive amount of returns on there hands which would be devastating to any company.
I might also like to add that by the overclocking of any cpu heat is automatically increased and as mobile phones do not have cooling fans and vents like a laptop for instance the heat generated in an overclocking situation could prove fatal in a given amount of time, days or weeks of bench testing does NOT prove stability as this can take even 6 month or years for pcb's to start malfunctioning with dry joints broken tracks intermittent joints etc etc. Stability in true form takes even years to prove not a few weeks and given the very fact that nowerdays pcb's are made to the minimum spec needed to pass protortype stage it hardly suprises me that things go very wrong because people dont take all the factors into consideration before increasing heat, HEAT is any electronics device's nightmare.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

It's probably a bunch of reasons:

- Increased MTBF
- Stability (I'm running stable at 1ghz, but over 1 million units, freezes may be statistically significant)
- Slight battery gains (critical for a <48h phone)
- Upgrade path (next phone will undoubtedly be faster)
- Encouragement for developers to optimize their apps
- Lower manufacturing rejection

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Can't complain at the end. The fact that it can be overclocked is a good thing. (umm, you know what I mean. lol)

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Yep, as a few above me already stated:

1) Better unit yields

2) Statistically better stability(for a given number of units)

There's a reason why certain CPUs will overclock better than others of the same bin, and why the manufacturer does not sell them at a higher bin, for a CPU manufacturer it all depends on yields. For a device manufacturer, it all depends on what speed will give the best stability for a large number of units, while not compromising performance.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Jakiman's overclocking summary is useful on this subject. See his signature for the link.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

maybe overclock will short the life of the device

i dont think that the n900 has the proper refrigeration

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

shorter lifecycle and higher risk of data corruption. Data corruption is IMO worst because i think that we would have lots of really really weird bug reports in bugzilla. Data corruption may seem like bugs in applications and sometimes it´s really hard to spot and it can lead to lot´s of wasted time on bug hunting.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Reasons:
a) They can buy cheaper components to build same model.
b) They can produce new models cheaper.

(battery? stock battery life is 5h, even less, under moderate stress. If you work more than 4h59min/day, you need two-three bats or a charger int your pocket... so no matter if OC under heavy stress longs 2h30min, the 5800 Xpress Charger does the job... as with stock kernels)

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

just because it works at 1 ghz doesnt mean its a good idea to run it at 1 ghz.

if they planned on using a higher clocked cpu, they would have used one that was build to run at such speeds.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

If they planned for 1Ghz chipsets, it would be able to be overclocked even more. :D

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

the N800 and 810 kernels for diablo were "overclocked" compared to the chinook kernels.
maybe nokia will release an official higer clocked kernel.
maybe they wont.
stability is the most important thing for most....

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Personally I think it is beyond tech, it's business related. High frequency will be kept for new device.

ARM 11 is used for N800 + N810.
ARM Cortex A8 is used in N900 + future Nxxx.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

They were not overclocked for sure. Those chips are "speed sorted OMAP2" and are really rated by TI as being able to run at 400MHz clock frequency. Have a look here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/maemo-de.../msg10619.html
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ppt-downloa...tablets565.pdf

Even today, there is a higher speed version of OMAP3530 (a chip which is similar to OMAP3430 used in N900), which can run stable at 720MHz instead of standard 600MHz. But this higher speed version of OMAP3 chips became available only recently, and I guess it was too late for N900: http://newscenter.ti.com/Blogs/newsr...ns-228688.aspx

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

And the default is really 500, 550 and 600 are overdrive and the processor's manufacturer says it'll halve the lifetime at 600 ;)

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

But how long do they expect the cpu of the N900 to last with the standard 600 mhz :confused: I'm tempted to oc mine but i want it to last as long as possible. I just love this phone and the openess of it, so it would be a shame to shorten the life spand of it i think :)

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Wrong calculation. To work on high frequency the CPU currents should be increased proportionally (linear). But energy consumption increases quadratically (W = R * I * I). So, the linear increase in CPU performance is adjusted by quadruple increase in power consumption.

EDIT: well, I am not completely honest in this calculation, only part of CPU wires is a subject of that and I didn't take into account the decreased time. However, it is true - per any given number of CPU cycles the high frequency cycles take more energy.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

That's the thing... If the processor has an expected life of 6 years, I wouldn't really care if I halve it to 3... 3 years is a long time to use one phone.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Because there is something like N920 or N900 mini or something else will come with 1 GHz :) sales strategy

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Given my experience with embedded systems, to be honest I'd be shocked if anyone's CPU died, even after a year locked 100% load at 1ghz. 50C just isn't that hot.

The spec sheet publishes the worst-case-scenario.. theoretical minimums/maximums. But frankly, I bet the things to fail in our phones will be the switch-mode power supply, offchip capacitors, radios, etc... long before a 1ghz OC'd CPU.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

because nokia quarantees that every n900 can handle 600mHz. and you probably don't have money for n900 that is quaranteed to run @900mhz....

the lower the limit, the cheaper the parts are (less reject: cpus that run with 650mhz can be used unlike with 900mhz)

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

i dont think it makes that much of a diff. my friends has a samsung moment clocked @ 800 mhz. my phone is waaaay faster than hers and multitasks like a champ. i don't think the over all speed of yoru phone and with specific applications depend entirely on the clock speed.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Also note that ...
You can guess that they've been speed binned, and that in your hands you have the one that didn't pass the test.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

No, that is not true. Usually, after a little time in tweaking the manufacturing process, all chips that work, work at the highest frequency. It is very likely that none of the 3430 that Nokia got from TI was even tested for 720, it is just as likely that over 99% of those that passes the tests at 600MHz will also pass the tests at 720MHz.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

Also there might be a possibility that their yields got so much better that they have to brand most CPU's that pass the 3440 test as 3430 due the demand over the 3440. Just like the bigger CPU manufacturers do like Intel and AMD.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

OTOH the timing is a bit suspicious :) TI announced 720MHz version at about the same time when the mass production of N900 and the other omap3 based phones started. It could be an indication that the yield is not very good, but they now have enough chips to select faster ones in commercially viable quantities and sell them separately. I don't have any real information on the subject, so it's just a speculation.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

In a similar situation is OpenPandora's second batch, since by then the OMAP3550-720 was introduced.

Re: Why does Nokia give us such a low default 600MHz?
 

not really
usually the cpu runs at 125Mhz