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In my opinion, the way for ARM to succeed in the server space is: 1) One quarter the price for equivalent performance for server task (e.g. 500 USD for 48-core

by faragon 10y ago

In my opinion, the way for ARM to succeed in the server space is: 1) One quarter the price for equivalent performance for server task (e.g. 500 USD for 48-core Qualcomm vs 2000 USD for 16-core (32-thread) Intel). E.g. the problem of 48-core Cavium ARM chip was poor performance, that could be fixed by Qualcomm, with better IPC (big enough L3 cache, and 3 or 4 OooE). 2) One quarter the power usage 3) Reliable and affordable motherboards 4) Devices at similar price vs Intel ecosystem (high performance Ethernet, Infiniband, PCI-E SDD, etc.)

dom0 10y ago
"One quarter the price" ... "One quarter the power usage" ... The first is very unrealistic because this is a market and ARM chip makers aren't Santa Clause, the second seems very, very unrealistic, because Intel already has the most efficient "big iron"-ish CPUs (just compare SAP benchmarks vs. power usage of Intel-based vs. POWER-based systems, for instance), and have been under continuous pressure for more than a decade to make things more efficient (because energy use and costs following from it are a major cost factor for all of Intel's biggest server customers). That alone doesn't mean that it's not possible to be better, of course, but it's a strong hint that if no one else managed to get close to Intel there that it maybe is a hard thing to pull off. In any case I think a four-fold efficiency increase is expecting way too much. 10 % better power efficiency at the same performance level per unit would already signal a huge win for ARM.
- kikoreis 10y ago
  No, actually he is exactly right. 10% better would made no difference to the typical buyer, and to complicate any TCO guesstimate would need to take into account managing a new arch in a deployment, which comes with its own hard to measure overheads.
  - dom0 10y ago
    Define "typical buyer". 10-15% instant energy savings would be one heck of a reason for FB/Google/Amazon/Microsoft to veer towards ARM for their clouds, especially if the vendor can plausibly show that they have more potential there. These are servers, not hypedisruptionmarkets. Not once where there 400 % efficiency increases in a single generation of anything.
    - djrogers 10y ago
      > 10-15% instant energy savings would be one heck of a reason for FB/Google/Amazon/Microsoft to veer towards ARM for their clouds I'm not sure the upfront effort/cost would be worth it for that savings alone, especially when Intel will just come along and say they'll have that savings in an x86 chip in 9 months without any software dev required. What this could do for the big DC companies though, is provide them a lever to keep Intel on that path. That lever alone might be worth all the dev effort required to support 2 architectures in a DC for some customers - and even if it's not worth it empirically, it may make them feel like it is.

by faragon 10y ago

dom0 10y ago

"One quarter the price" ... "One quarter the power usage" ... The first is very unrealistic because this is a market and ARM chip makers aren't Santa Clause, the second seems very, very unrealistic, because Intel already has the most efficient "big iron"-ish CPUs (just compare SAP benchmarks vs. power usage of Intel-based vs. POWER-based systems, for instance), and have been under continuous pressure for more than a decade to make things more efficient (because energy use and costs following from it are a major cost factor for all of Intel's biggest server customers). That alone doesn't mean that it's not possible to be better, of course, but it's a strong hint that if no one else managed to get close to Intel there that it maybe is a hard thing to pull off. In any case I think a four-fold efficiency increase is expecting way too much. 10 % better power efficiency at the same performance level per unit would already signal a huge win for ARM.

kikoreis 10y ago
No, actually he is exactly right. 10% better would made no difference to the typical buyer, and to complicate any TCO guesstimate would need to take into account managing a new arch in a deployment, which comes with its own hard to measure overheads.
- dom0 10y ago
  Define "typical buyer". 10-15% instant energy savings would be one heck of a reason for FB/Google/Amazon/Microsoft to veer towards ARM for their clouds, especially if the vendor can plausibly show that they have more potential there. These are servers, not hypedisruptionmarkets. Not once where there 400 % efficiency increases in a single generation of anything.
  - djrogers 10y ago
    > 10-15% instant energy savings would be one heck of a reason for FB/Google/Amazon/Microsoft to veer towards ARM for their clouds I'm not sure the upfront effort/cost would be worth it for that savings alone, especially when Intel will just come along and say they'll have that savings in an x86 chip in 9 months without any software dev required. What this could do for the big DC companies though, is provide them a lever to keep Intel on that path. That lever alone might be worth all the dev effort required to support 2 architectures in a DC for some customers - and even if it's not worth it empirically, it may make them feel like it is.