3 ms·

You can buy HP Moonshots with ARM cartridges for relatively realistic prices. PayPal is supposedly running some of their stuff on them.

lsc 11y ago
I do not have the energy to go through sales... what is 'realistic' here? And can they compete in cpu power per watt with the Intel Xeon D boards I can get from my local supermicro distributor? they look pretty sweet; the only real problem is the four dimm limit; I'm seriously considering those and 32gib modules right now, just because they have such a nice watts per flop. Long-term, for it to be a realistic solution, I'll need to be able to buy compatible parts from different companies.
- achamayou 11y ago
  Sorry, I can't say exactly. You can find R120-P30 1U boxes at GBP1500 (8core 8DIMMs) http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-r120-p30-single-socket-1u-rackmount-armv8-24ghz-pcie-30-8x-ddr3-slots-ecc-unbuffered-2x-10g http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-r120-p30-single-sock... Higher density systems like Moonshot or H270-T70 are cheaper per core of course, whether they're competitive depends on your specific application. They're not at the point where they're commoditized and where you can buy parts easily though.
  - lsc 11y ago
    hm. $2200 in the money I use, or so. hm. the xeon D is around half that just for the board and cpu (with four dimms, but also with 8 cores... presumably 8 more powerful cores) - and after that it's just a matter of sheet-metal and a psu, so if you can deal with half the dimms, the xeon d is lower capital cost. (I mean, you can spend a grand on a psu and a case, but you have to try pretty hard.) - but the real world power usage could make the difference. Hm. Things are often cheaper priced in USD, too. So... yes. more research is required. But thanks! I wasn't aware that gigabyte was actually shipping it's arm stuff to mortals. Hm. I still don't see it in any of my usual (USian) channels; nothing on provantage. Still, pretty cool stuff.
    - makomk 11y ago
      The performance and performance-per-watt of the X-Gene1 processor that thing uses don't look terribly competitive, unfortunately: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9185/intel-xeon-d-review-performance-per-watt-server-soc-champion/9 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9185/intel-xeon-d-review-perfo... Apparently it's made on a 40nm process, and it's probably not a terribly well-optimised design either, both of which go some way to explaining why it's not much good. (Though I guess it was good enough to convince Intel to release the Xeon D for a reasonable price. As you say, Intel's run by profit-maximising professionals - they can resoundingly beat any ARM server chips anyone puts out and drive them out of business, they just don't release their best chips at the best price unless they have to.)
      - lsc 11y ago
        Yeah, the xeon D chips are the only 13nm xeons out. Funny that. At least they didn't gimp it as hard as they gimped the E3 xeons. Sure, only four ram slots is the same... but on the e3 it maxes out with 8gb dimms. here, at least I can use 32gb dimms, which are coming down in price, and get a semi-reasonable 128g

lsc 11y ago

I do not have the energy to go through sales... what is 'realistic' here? And can they compete in cpu power per watt with the Intel Xeon D boards I can get from my local supermicro distributor? they look pretty sweet; the only real problem is the four dimm limit; I'm seriously considering those and 32gib modules right now, just because they have such a nice watts per flop. Long-term, for it to be a realistic solution, I'll need to be able to buy compatible parts from different companies.

achamayou 11y ago
Sorry, I can't say exactly. You can find R120-P30 1U boxes at GBP1500 (8core 8DIMMs) http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-r120-p30-single-socket-1u-rackmount-armv8-24ghz-pcie-30-8x-ddr3-slots-ecc-unbuffered-2x-10g http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-r120-p30-single-sock... Higher density systems like Moonshot or H270-T70 are cheaper per core of course, whether they're competitive depends on your specific application. They're not at the point where they're commoditized and where you can buy parts easily though.
- lsc 11y ago
  hm. $2200 in the money I use, or so. hm. the xeon D is around half that just for the board and cpu (with four dimms, but also with 8 cores... presumably 8 more powerful cores) - and after that it's just a matter of sheet-metal and a psu, so if you can deal with half the dimms, the xeon d is lower capital cost. (I mean, you can spend a grand on a psu and a case, but you have to try pretty hard.) - but the real world power usage could make the difference. Hm. Things are often cheaper priced in USD, too. So... yes. more research is required. But thanks! I wasn't aware that gigabyte was actually shipping it's arm stuff to mortals. Hm. I still don't see it in any of my usual (USian) channels; nothing on provantage. Still, pretty cool stuff.
  - makomk 11y ago
    The performance and performance-per-watt of the X-Gene1 processor that thing uses don't look terribly competitive, unfortunately: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9185/intel-xeon-d-review-performance-per-watt-server-soc-champion/9 http://www.anandtech.com/show/9185/intel-xeon-d-review-perfo... Apparently it's made on a 40nm process, and it's probably not a terribly well-optimised design either, both of which go some way to explaining why it's not much good. (Though I guess it was good enough to convince Intel to release the Xeon D for a reasonable price. As you say, Intel's run by profit-maximising professionals - they can resoundingly beat any ARM server chips anyone puts out and drive them out of business, they just don't release their best chips at the best price unless they have to.)
    - lsc 11y ago
      Yeah, the xeon D chips are the only 13nm xeons out. Funny that. At least they didn't gimp it as hard as they gimped the E3 xeons. Sure, only four ram slots is the same... but on the e3 it maxes out with 8gb dimms. here, at least I can use 32gb dimms, which are coming down in price, and get a semi-reasonable 128g