When OnLive launched its cloud gaming console just a short while also, the company hasn't made any disclosures about the hardware used to make it tick, so curiosity was the name of the game for many of its fans, one of them recently taking his micro-console apart in order to see what lies behind its compact case.
As far as teardowns go, the procedure was pretty simple as it only required removing a few screws, shortly thereafter the OnLive spreading its bits and pieces all over David Fisher's kitchen countertop.
Finally we were able to take a look at the console's PCB, our attention being quickly drawn by the Marvell Armada CPU that powers this thing together with 512MB of Elpida-built RAM memory.
For those of you that aren't so familiar with Marvell's Armada chip, this quad-core SoC is built on top of the
ARM v7 architecture and comes clocked at 1GHz, the Santa Clara-based company also incorporating a powerful GPU that is capable of 1080p video decoding and encoding along with a cryptographic engine.
Various other video and storage interfaces are integrated on-chip, but the most important part about Marvell's SoC (at least as OnLive is concerned) is the 1080p video playback capabilities, as this means OnLive can update it's
console in the future to deliver Full HD content, if they so desire.
On the same side of the PCB as the Marvell chip, we also find a Samsung-built NAND ROM, but, unfortunately, it's part number doesn't reveal its capacity.
Having a peak at the back of the circuit board reveals a slew of chips, these taking care of Bluetooth, WiFi and Ethernet connectivity.
Finally I'll let you take a look for yourself at the OnLive's insides, the console being pretty simple form an engineering point of view. (via
engadget)
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