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System76 launching ARM Pro server with 96 cores up to 1TB ECC RAM and 32TB storage
- nkkollaw 10y agoI see that they're releasing a new laptop: https://system76.com/laptops/galago https://system76.com/laptops/galago This is probably the first laptop from them that I could consider buying, judging solely on that small picture of it. Still super-thick, and I don't know if I would feel comfortable buying that over the XPS, but at least it's got HiDPI, which for the price they sell their laptops for I feel should be included.
- 2bluesc 10y agoI owned the previous 14" 1080p Haswell powered Galago Ultra Pro built by Clevo. Build quality was terrible and battery life was horrific when compared to Dell Precision 15 (aka XPS). I quick quickly sold it and haven't missed it.
- asldkfjasfd7 10y agoAgreed about build quality. Our small office ordered a couple models in 2014-ish, to evaluate them. Lifted the LCD to find it had some much flex, it felt like tagboard. Plastic housings were incredibly flimsy feeling. Those 10" netbooks that were popular for a while never felt as cheap. We kept them as emergency backups and used one as a server, tucked in the server closet for a bit, but otherwise stuck with Dell. Who knows, maybe the aluminum one will remove those problems.
- randomsofr 10y agoJudging from that video, it seems they don't spend a lot of money on advertising.
- nkkollaw 10y agoYes, that was pretty bad. It almost seems like they're showing how thick it is...
- freehunter 10y ago>Still super-thick You make your laptops super thin and people complain about ports and only 16GB of RAM and no repairability. You make your laptops repairable with three different kinds of USB ports plus HDMI and 32GB of RAM, and people complain it's super-thick.
- icebraining 10y agoIt's like different people have different opinion on stuff!
- freehunter 10y agoBut they all share one thing in common: complaining on the Internet about products that aren't marketed toward them.
- icebraining 10y agoFrom the laptop's marketing page: "Thin". Absent from the page: "repairable", "three USB ports", "32GB of RAM".
- wybiral 10y agoI've seen that elf movie. You can do crazy things with perspective...
- koolba 10y agoThat's a beautiful ad!
- robert_foss 10y agoThe CPU seems to be 2x Cavium ThunderX_CP for a total of 96 cores.
- codegeek 10y agoaah system 76. I hope they have improved recently with their customer service but I had a horrible experience with them back in 2013 when they had to replace a keyboard (the CEO actually sent an email explaining how shitty their keyboard was) and when I asked for a refund, they simply refused. NO refunds. I had to literally open the laptop myself and install the new keyboard. I am not one of those types who asks for refunds on anything. This was genuinely a defective laptop with a faulty keyboard (turns out that is how they were shipping it back then to everyone) and their answer was to replace with the new one (after the CEO sent a bulk email to every customer) . Why should I have to go through that hassle ? This was the first time I almost thought of doing a chargeback but didn't.
- chx 10y agoSo we have a data point from four years ago and you are still harboring a resentment so hard that you feel you need to air your grievances for a completely different product. I get it. Hell hath no fury like a customer scorned.
- jdreaver 10y agoI have two coworkers that just had to get replacement keyboards for their System76 laptops. They have to replace them themselves as well.
- rlonstein 10y ago> They have to replace them themselves as well. It happens. I've done field replacements on Dell laptops for DOA components for non-technical friends, most recently a dvd drive and previously a keyboard. Dell shipped the components and I swapped them out for exchange. Dell quoted moderately long (over a week) round trip if it went to a service center but my friends wouldn't have attempted it themselves.
- throwaway91111 10y agoWell, to be fair, it's not just one data point, that's failed customer service for an entire product—most likely thousands of data points.
- analognoise 10y agoI wanted to like System76. I had a dead pixel on a new machine that was to be my new workhorse AAAAAND that's how I learned what a dead pixel policy is! Turns out, theirs was rubbish. The whole laptop wasn't elegant or well constructed, but it was durable. I had to send it in for repairs once, that went well. Still, I'd never buy anything of theirs again. Ever.
- jacquesm 10y agoDead pixel 'on' or dead pixel 'off'?
- analognoise 10y agoDead pixel on, bright green. HOORAY.
- jacquesm 10y agoUgh. That's not acceptable. Ok. I asked because I've seen someone make a huge fuss about a pixel that was simply dead (off) and I probably would not have noticed at all. But a bright green on pixel no matter where on the screen would be a continuous distraction for me.
- dmoy 10y agoWhen I got my current monitor I noticed it had a dead (on) bright red pixel. I was originally extremely upset with this and it was super distracting, but then 2 days later I didn't notice it anymore, and now I can't even remember where it is. That was like 3+ years ago I think.
- analognoise 10y agoThe wavelength most noticeable to the human eye is yellow-green - I wonder if we're less apt to notice depending on wavelength?
- thepumpkin1979 10y agoReminds me Type 2A at Packet.net, a similar 96 core processor, 128GB RAM and 340 SSD for $0.50 USD /hr https://www.packet.net/bare-metal/servers/type-2a/ https://www.packet.net/bare-metal/servers/type-2a/
- salimmadjd 10y agoSo many product lines for such a small company. Laptops, Desktops, Servers. Not even Apple is able to effectively manage this many different products. I don't know much about them, but from my first impression it looks like a company with lack of focus. I'm not sure how they will be able to create killer product in any of the segments they're trying to compete in. Based on my above observation (admittedly superficial), I would never buy anything from them. I would not trust the quality nor their ability to be able to support it.
- frozenport 10y agoThey assemble machines at a small markup. This is essentially the business model of a bicycle store. The quality is very much related to the quality of the underlying system.
- andyana 10y agoIf all you need is a linux laptop, desktop or server, what kind of killer app does the company need to provide besides a system with supported components?
- zeveb 10y agoI bought one of their laptops years ago and liked it; I eventually bequeathed it to a sister-in-law, who seems to like it well enough. I probably won't buy their stuff again, because I only run Debian these days, but I think that they're a decent company and I recommend them to folks who want to run Ubuntu.
- bisby 10y agoOut of curiosity, where do you go for pre-built Debian systems, or completely OS-less systems? I would think that merely having the promise of Ubuntu support out of the box would make it better to install Debian, than on some random Windows machine.
- zeveb 10y ago> Out of curiosity, where do you go for pre-built Debian systems, or completely OS-less systems? I've been pretty happy with Zareason so far, although these days one does often have to contact them ahead of time to be sure Debian will run fine. > I would think that merely having the promise of Ubuntu support out of the box would make it better to install Debian, than on some random Windows machine. I'd have thought so, too, except that getting Debian onto my System76 laptop was no fun at all. Ubuntu really is tolerant of non-free software, binary blobs and other things that I'd like to get away from.
- Symbiote 10y agoWhat would be a typical use case for something like this?
- anoother 10y agoThis is a Gigabyte server, probably one of the following: http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T61-rev-110 http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T61-rev-110 http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T62-rev-100 http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T62-rev-100 What value-add does System76 provide?
- wmf 10y agoThe ability to actually buy it? I'm not joking; most ODM equipment is a hassle to buy, especially in small quantities for POCs.
- anoother 10y agoAfter my experience buying a first-gen Gigabyte ARM server, I can only say... ...You're actually right.
- flat6turbo 10y agoalso the ability to RMA faulty gear, get support, yell at someone to send you stuff faster, although ... judging from the comments in this thread, maybe not. fwiw, nobody in this space really gives a shit about you unless you're spending $50k or more, and realistically $250k or more on an ongoing basis. you're better off going to fry's or buying from a used gear vendor if you want small quantities.
- vidarh 10y agoThere are plenty of smaller companies you can buy from to act as intermediaries. My experience (in the UK) is that you pay a small premium for it over the larger providers, but you certainly can get providers where you deal with someone who'll remember your name and actually answer the phone/e-mails even if you only order a single server here and there.
- flat6turbo 10y agowe buy from a tiny company located literally down the road from the building where the servers get shipped in from the port. it cost us a considerable amount of money and time finding this vendor, so i consider it a trade secret (and the oem too). fwiw, their website and marketing are atrocious but they deliver product on time every time. i've been in business long enough to know how these things work.
- astrodust 10y agoFrom $6399USD. That's quite a price-tag, but a lot less than a high-spec Xeon server where the CPUs alone are $3000 each. It'll be interesting to see benchmarks of how this performs.
- wmf 10y agohttp://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thunderx-48-arm-cores http://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thu... https://www.servethehome.com/exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx-dual-48-core-96-core-total-arm-benchmarks/ https://www.servethehome.com/exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx... https://www.servethehome.com/cavium-thunderx-micro-benchmarks-enterprise-arm-developers-need-machines/ https://www.servethehome.com/cavium-thunderx-micro-benchmark...
- astrodust 10y agoOuch. If it's having trouble keeping pace with the E6-2670v1 that's not good. That's an 8-core chip from 2012. You can get them on eBay for $75.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoRemember Intel is market leader making full-custom CPU's with more money thrown at each one than these small companies have. They also optimize the heck out of single-core performance which most RISC multicores don't. I think it's one of those things where you have to choose best bang for buck supporting an oligopoly or sacrifice some performance/cash to encourage new product development. Market says it overwhelmingly favors the former.
- astrodust 10y agoEven in multi-threaded benchmarks, where it should shine, it's getting murdered. ARM is a very promising platform and there's no technical reason why it can't out-perform Intel. It's just a matter of engineering it with that intent. Right now it's primarily intended to be efficient and good enough for mobile phones.
- Splendor 10y agoSlightly off-topic; the "FakeHtop" element on the page is mesmerizing.
- git-pull 10y agoFor those who don't know, that thing with meters on it is htop(1). http://hisham.hm/htop/ http://hisham.hm/htop/
- Arkanosis 10y agoI find it a bit ironical to have this FakeHtop showing most CPU time wasted as system time (the red bars) just below the tagline ”Seamlessly distribute your services across 96 ARM cores” :o)
- snissn 10y agoWhy arm?
- nickpsecurity 10y agoThe ecosystem. That's its main selling point.
- snissn 10y agoThanks - for servers? Would this be used to host a database?
- nickpsecurity 10y agoChristie covers the argument for proprietary ISA's in this discussion: https://research.cs.wisc.edu/multifacet/papers/ieeemicro16_card_isa.pdf https://research.cs.wisc.edu/multifacet/papers/ieeemicro16_c... It not the ISA that makes it desirable. It's all the tooling, apps, branding, and talent around it. You have to rebuild that stuff for new ISA's. You also have to get the market to trust a new one after so many perished. That is why companies pay ARM $1-15 million for licenses to use that ISA and brand name.
- wmf 10y agoSince we're talking about servers, it doesn't seem like any of those are advantages for ARM compared to x86.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoIt's apples to oranges. ARM is designed to be customizable with all kinds of pluggible accelerators and stuff. x86 is what Intel decides it is. I heard they followed AMD in building a semi-custom business but with who knows what limitations or costs. So, you get a lightweight, easy-to-customize SOC with huge ecosystem for both software and hardware accelerators.
- bmurphy1976 10y agoOrdered a 1U from them. Going on a month now with no delivery date yet and no indications there would be a problem until after we ordered. Not a big deal for us, we can wait and ordered it because it was cheap, but consider yourselves warned.
- atheist 10y agoSimilar experience - buyer beware in this case. Still have the hots for their hardware, though.
- Spien 10y agoHad pretty much the same experience ordering a laptop. I'm happy with the laptop, but acquiring the laptop was fustrating.
- omginternets 10y agoI had a pretty crappy experience buying from them in 2007. At that time I think they were just getting started, so I chalked it up to "beginner's mistake", but it seems like these problems persist. My data-point, as best I can recall: - ordered a serval laptop - long delays with minimal communication - laptop arrived and motherboard died within a few days After sending it back for repairs and haggling over the warrantee (DHL damaged the case, so they didn't want to pay for the motherboard initially), I got the thing replaced and it ran smoothly for many years. EDIT: to be clear, I was ultimately happy with the device itself -- it finally died in 2013. It's rather the shipping/service/etc that was disappointing, though I've seen much worse.
- organsnyder 10y agoI also ordered from them in 2007, but I had a good experience. I was ordering a server (tower form factor), which would be easier than a laptop. IIRC, they were out of the particular CPU I had ordered, so they replaced it with a better one (one of the first dual-core chips) for the same price. That system ran very well, in a musty basement, for a number of years. I recently used the case—an Intel server model—to house a gaming rig.
- nimos 10y agohttp://www.cavium.com/pdfFiles/ThunderX_CP_PB_Rev1.pdf?x=2 http://www.cavium.com/pdfFiles/ThunderX_CP_PB_Rev1.pdf?x=2 Spec sheet for the CPU is there. I just don't see how IO doesn't end up murdering performance. 16MB shared L2 is across all the cores?
- wmf 10y agoThe cores are so wimpy that 16MB is an appropriate amount. For comparison a Xeon D only has 12MB.
- nimos 10y agoXeon D's also have a 256KB L2 though then 1.5MB per core shared L3. Whereas this is 333KB per core L2 which is presumably shared. Not really informed enough to say it would be the performance bottleneck but it seems like it would be to me in most server environments.
- patrickg_zill 10y agoThe Anandtech article linked above explains that the Arm cores differ from the Xeon, since the pipeline architecture is not as complex.
- vhost- 10y agoI got Lemur 14" laptop a while back and absolutely hated the build quality. The keyboard is terrible and the screen has the worst viewing angles of any laptop I've ever owned. I got tired of it after 4 or 5 months and converted it to a home server and it's been super reliable in that mode since 2014. AND it also has the benefit of staying online during power outages.
- TezlaKoil 10y agoClevo is a huge Chinese OEM computer manufacturer which exclusively produces cheap, low-quality laptop computers. System76 selects Clevo configurations that are more-or-less compatible with Linux, puts a brand on them and sells them at a somewhat-inflated price.
- jdfellow 10y agoNot really that inflated. I built a Clevo laptop about 4 years ago, and compared it to an identical System76 build, it was only $70 difference. That thing was pretty poor quality though. Died fall of 15, replaced it with an XPS 13 which is still going strong.
- jon-wood 10y agoI got a Clevo laptop a few years back from another company that works similarly. The spec was pretty good for the price, but I'll second the crappy build quality - they're very plasticy, and the heatsinks kept clogging up with dust destroying any cooling.
- markbnj 10y agoSame with my Gazelle which I purchased seven months ago. I definitely would not get another. The build quality of the case is horrible. The keyboard is horrible. The touchpad is horrible. The display is ok and that's about the best thing that can be said for the machine.
- pipetogrep 10y agoSame type of experience. I had a Lemur 14" and a Sable Complete. The Lemur just stopped posting one day after less than two years of use. The Sable's screen turned off randomly and smoke came out of the USB ports. After opening it I saw that various components had melted. That too, was less than two year. They were both babied and well cared for.
- ckdarby 10y agoOrdered a laptop from them back in the day. Worst purchase in my entire life.
- htsh 10y agoCan you expand upon this please? I'm considering doing the same now but this gives me pause.
- ckdarby 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12854293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12854293 It was a terrible experience across the board, never again. Highly recommend the Zenbook or the Dell XPS for linux distros :). I personally have the Zenbook but I have three friends with the XPS now. There was some complaining on the XPS about the backlight or something?
- anaphor 10y agoI think it has some kind of firmware that manages the backlight, so if you switch between really bright and dark windows a lot (like a browser and terminal) then it changes brightness a lot which is annoying, and there's no way to turn it off. Personally the only thing I've had issues with (on Linux) is the soundcard producing low-level noise because of the CPU going into powersaving mode. It's fixable but I can't remember exactly what I had to do to get it to stop. On the bright side, it does help a lot for the battery life (I get around 8 hours usually). I also have an older system76 laptop and I would definitely recommend the XPS (13 or 15) over it if you want something lightweight with good battery life.
- kentt 10y agoI'd also warn against purchasing system76 Here's some (mostly negative) thoughts on it from last time they came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12851080
- slizard 10y agoSadly these gen-1 ThunderX cores are pretty poor in performance and not particularly power-efficient either. Cache performance is especially sucky. https://www.servethehome.com/exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx-dual-48-core-96-core-total-arm-benchmarks/ https://www.servethehome.com/exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx... http://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thunderx-48-arm-cores http://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thu... I hope that this is just a rebranded system showing the redyness of System76 and raising awareness about such products so that they're better positioned for the ThunderX2 release later this year.
- runeks 10y agoARM was never particularly power-efficient. ARM was designed for low power, not power efficiency. The only case where an ARM core is more power efficient than a Xeon core is when they're both idle -- primarily because the ARM core was designed to be idle most of the time, while the Xeon core was designed to be in use most of the time.
- gpderetta 10y agoARM the architecture has very little to do with power efficiency as it is out of scope (except that the old the ARM 32bit instruction set was amenable for a very low power implementation). ARM the company does design both low power and power efficient implementations of the ARM architecture. In fact for some specific power targets (mobile for example) they are more efficient than the corresponding Intel CPUs. This is still irrelevant as Cavium design its own ARM cores from scratch (i.e. it doesn't use ARM reference designs) specifically for server use; now, they are not very good, but that's another story.
- runeks 10y ago> In fact for some specific power targets (mobile for example) they are more efficient than the corresponding Intel CPUs. I agree, but only if the measurement of power efficiency includes idle periods -- eg. "browse for 5 minutes, lock phone and wait 30 minutes, repeat". I don't believe you can provide a source showing an ARM CPU executing a particular workload (i.e. not including idle periods) at greater power efficiency than a same-generation Intel x86 CPU.
- tiffanyh 10y agoIf anyone wants to use these for web servers, you might want to think again. Facebook did the same evaluation recently and decided that the Intel Xeon-D chip was best [1]. YMMV [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11254755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11254755
- sjtgraham 10y agoYea, decided it was best for them. I would like to see benchmarks of a BEAM app running on the Xeon-D and an ARM server with a huge number of physical CPU cores.
- tiffanyh 10y agoBEAM would be an extremely interesting benchmark given the parallel nature of Erlang. Hopefully the WhatsApp team is investigating high-core count ARM architecture and will report on it.
- storrgie 10y agoNo offense to System76, I'm very happy they are entering this space early. I just will wait for one of the biggies (e.g. dell, lenovo) so that I know the hardware could be supported. I'm really wanting to shake Intel if possible, and I'm struggling to find chassis that support the amount of addons I require... but with these ARM servers and the network I/O they have onboard, I'm quite excited.
- 5ilv3r 10y agoLooking forward to riscv here, since it will be possible for tons of competition in the wackass chip features department. We should get some great purpose built servers out of that in 10 years or so.
- alexbardas 10y agoIf anyone is interested in buying a System 76 product and have it delivered outside of US, please take into account that the price doesn't include VAT. This has to be payed separately, which usually means that each device is ~20% more expensive (when delivered outside of US). I ended up having to pay 400$ more for delivery + VAT for a laptop (didn't know about the VAT tax at that time). Very good performance, but rather mediocre quality (1 usb port is completely unusable).
- tlrobinson 10y agoWhat sort of workloads would this be suitable for?
- 5ilv3r 10y agoArm build farm comes to mind
- AndrewUnmuted 10y agoIf you're looking for a server dedicated to supporting Linux, I suggest checking out Penguin Computing. They have a much better reputation and have much better servers than this System76 attempt.
- patrickg_zill 10y agoEach 48 core cpu lists for $800. So why does the base system start at $6399?
- Animats 10y agoAll 96 cores share the same memory? Does the thing choke on memory bandwidth, or what?
- legulere 10y agoHow does that thing boot and does it work with a mainline kernel I do not have to compile myself?
- youdontknowtho 10y agothats impressive. 96 cores starting at 6k? did anybody else configure a silverback workstation with all the options to see what it would cost? ($33k...but wow.)
- _pmf_ 10y agoI need this.
- chatman 10y agoWhat is the CPU speed for these 96 cores?
- rrggrr 10y agoPurchased two linux desktops from them. Neither lasted more than a year. Purchased two small servers, both doing fine. Overall I can't really recommend them.
- sgarg26 10y agoIn 2013, I ordered a laptop from them as well. First, my screen died within a few months. I encountered hidden fees and rudeness trying to work through their tech support and warranty policy. Then, the motherboard died within the year.
- rlonstein 10y agoanecdata: bought a Bonobo from them a couple of years ago at $EMPLOYER for a [semi]portable workstation. Arrived in just few days and it was as expected. The developer who used it liked it though it didn't move much once it hit his desk. I didn't like the keyboard and thought the finish wasn't polished but I wasn't using it.