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Is there any good alternative to AMD or Intel processors? EDIT: Is there any good alternative to AMD or Intel processors? Like more open ones?

by askz 9y ago

_e 9y ago
Depends on what you use a computer for. Atmel (Raspberry Pi) and Snapdragon (cell phone) chips come to mind.
- ctz 9y ago
  Broadcom and Qualcomm, I think you'll find. Both of which are incredibly closed.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > Atmel (Raspberry Pi) The BCM2835/BCM2836/BCM2837 that is used in the RPi is made by Broadcom, not Atmel.
  - _e 9y ago
    Thank you for the correction.
- simias 9y ago
  What make those better or more open in your mind? In my experience modern ARM SoCs aren't a whole lot more open than x86 CPUs.
topspin 9y ago
Raptor Engineering makes/may eventually make(?) the "Talos Secure Workstation" based on POWER8. They claim "schematics and libre (fully open and auditable) firmware also are included." Don't know; don't own one. A mere $5,300 gets/might get you an 8 core workstation. IBM makes POWER CPUs and you may assume that -- unless they've disclosed something -- no one other than IBM and the NSA really know if there are any unauditable "support" processors on the die. Beyond that the Raptor site mentions that there are still some bits you don't get to know about their system: "several pages will be redacted on the public schematic due to mandatory NDAs with a few of our support silicon vendors." Everything else is SOC/MCU stuff; nothing that approaches the capabilities of these Intel and AMD CPUs. You could hold out on older pre-ME/PSP systems until RISC-V goes through enough evolution and market success to achieve parity with then-contemporary devices, sometime around 2035 I'd guess... Answer to your question is, in most cases, simply no.
- bubblethink 9y ago
  >until RISC-V goes through enough evolution and market success to achieve parity with then-contemporary devices, sometime around 2035 I'd guess... RISC-V just refers to the ISA, right ? An implementation by a vendor may still have ME/PSP like stuff, just like the x86 ISA has nothing to do with ME/PSP.
  - topspin 9y ago
    Sure. One can imagine a 64-bit 24 core RISC-V CPU with 60 billion transistors, all backdoored by some management processor. Perhaps by then the management CPU will be an x86 core running Linux. :)

Is there any good alternative to AMD or Intel processors? EDIT: Is there any good alternative to AMD or Intel processors? Like more open ones?

by askz 9y ago

Is there any good alternative to AMD or Intel processors? EDIT: Is there any good alternative to AMD or Intel processors? Like more open ones?

_e 9y ago

Depends on what you use a computer for. Atmel (Raspberry Pi) and Snapdragon (cell phone) chips come to mind.

ctz 9y ago
Broadcom and Qualcomm, I think you'll find. Both of which are incredibly closed.
wolfgke 9y ago
> Atmel (Raspberry Pi) The BCM2835/BCM2836/BCM2837 that is used in the RPi is made by Broadcom, not Atmel.
- _e 9y ago
  Thank you for the correction.
simias 9y ago
What make those better or more open in your mind? In my experience modern ARM SoCs aren't a whole lot more open than x86 CPUs.

topspin 9y ago

Raptor Engineering makes/may eventually make(?) the "Talos Secure Workstation" based on POWER8. They claim "schematics and libre (fully open and auditable) firmware also are included." Don't know; don't own one. A mere $5,300 gets/might get you an 8 core workstation. IBM makes POWER CPUs and you may assume that -- unless they've disclosed something -- no one other than IBM and the NSA really know if there are any unauditable "support" processors on the die. Beyond that the Raptor site mentions that there are still some bits you don't get to know about their system: "several pages will be redacted on the public schematic due to mandatory NDAs with a few of our support silicon vendors." Everything else is SOC/MCU stuff; nothing that approaches the capabilities of these Intel and AMD CPUs. You could hold out on older pre-ME/PSP systems until RISC-V goes through enough evolution and market success to achieve parity with then-contemporary devices, sometime around 2035 I'd guess... Answer to your question is, in most cases, simply no.

bubblethink 9y ago
>until RISC-V goes through enough evolution and market success to achieve parity with then-contemporary devices, sometime around 2035 I'd guess... RISC-V just refers to the ISA, right ? An implementation by a vendor may still have ME/PSP like stuff, just like the x86 ISA has nothing to do with ME/PSP.
- topspin 9y ago
  Sure. One can imagine a 64-bit 24 core RISC-V CPU with 60 billion transistors, all backdoored by some management processor. Perhaps by then the management CPU will be an x86 core running Linux. :)