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Any tips on good/cheap ARM-based boards for a desktop system that would pay for themselves in electricity savings?

robocat 8y ago
CloudFlare have unusual needs where ARM is very competitive, unlike desktop usage. From article: “Every request that comes in to Cloudflare is independent of every other request, so what we really need is as many cores per Watt as we can possibly get,” Prince explained. “The only metric we spend time thinking about is cores per Watt and requests per Watt.” The ARM-based Qualcomm Centriq processors perform very well by that measure. “They've got very high core counts at very lower power utilization in Gen 1, and in Gen 2 they're just going to widen their lead.”
- snaky 8y ago
  So the ideal arch for that would be non-CPU raw state machine, like Silego GreenPAK5 ASM cores, but they would better ask Dialog to remove all the peripherals, make state machines a bit bigger, and pack a thousands of ASM cores into one chip. And then sign NDA, get low-level proprietary format docs, and write the state machine code generator in Haskell or Coq.
  - fb03 8y ago
    Sounds fun, but still on your hypothetical scenario: all that complexity and proprietary cores and ndas would essentially tie them to the supplier of chips, essentially gagging the evolution of the whole CF architecture in the long run. If the race is for request por watt alone, then you're probably right, but there's always real-world grittiness that needs to be addresses. that's how Google succeeded right? leveraging common platforms and hardware to their highly specialized software combo.
- ajb 8y ago
  This. The ARM server class chips were mostly developed vendors of networking chips - Cavium, Qualcomm, Broadcom - for things like NAT boxes, programmable routers, Deep Packet Inspection, etc. They have a very high core count and proportionately less cache than standard server chips, but have been morphing to tackle more standard server loads.
imtringued 8y ago
Just get a x86 laptop if you care about energy efficiency that much. ARM desktops [0] that do what you want cost more than $1200. [0] https://www.96boards.org/product/developerbox/ https://www.96boards.org/product/developerbox/
- incompatible 8y ago
  That's unfortunate. I found a Snapdragon 850 CPU but it seems it's only intended for Windows laptops.
- guiriduro 8y ago
  You could strap together 3x ROCKPro64s (6 cores, 4GB, $80 each) to make a half decent docker swarm or kube, if you've got the right kind of parallelizable dev workload.
  - incompatible 8y ago
    That's more or less what I was looking for. There's a SATA adapter for $10: https://www.pine64.org/?product=rockpro64-pci-e-to-dual-sata-ii-interface-card https://www.pine64.org/?product=rockpro64-pci-e-to-dual-sata... However, I'm not sure how it would perform compared to my somewhat obsolete AMD Athlon II X2 260, and other posts have convinced me the power savings wouldn't necessarily be significant enough to pay for it.
lazyjones 8y ago
For the average desktop PC user (excluding gamers), the electricity costs for the CPU itself are probably largely irrelevant. A well-built modern PC will use less than 10-15W while idle (i.e. while you are reading this), meanwhile typical 27" displays will consume 30W or more.
- blattimwind 8y ago
  > For the average desktop PC user (excluding gamers), the electricity costs for the CPU itself are probably largely irrelevant. Using average German electricity price (which are some of the most expensive you can have) of 0.33 EUR / kWh, even if you are playing six hours a day with an average power consumption of 400 W (which you can only reach using a high-end PC and a big, bright monitor), you would still pay less than one Euro per day on electricity for that. The cost of the hardware makes that operating cost pretty much irrelevant.

CloudFlare have unusual needs where ARM is very competitive, unlike desktop usage. From article: “Every request that comes in to Cloudflare is independent of every other request, so what we really need is as many cores per Watt as we can possibly get,” Prince explained. “The only metric we spend time thinking about is cores per Watt and requests per Watt.” The ARM-based Qualcomm Centriq processors perform very well by that measure. “They've got very high core counts at very lower power utilization in Gen 1, and in Gen 2 they're just going to widen their lead.”

snaky 8y ago
So the ideal arch for that would be non-CPU raw state machine, like Silego GreenPAK5 ASM cores, but they would better ask Dialog to remove all the peripherals, make state machines a bit bigger, and pack a thousands of ASM cores into one chip. And then sign NDA, get low-level proprietary format docs, and write the state machine code generator in Haskell or Coq.
- fb03 8y ago
  Sounds fun, but still on your hypothetical scenario: all that complexity and proprietary cores and ndas would essentially tie them to the supplier of chips, essentially gagging the evolution of the whole CF architecture in the long run. If the race is for request por watt alone, then you're probably right, but there's always real-world grittiness that needs to be addresses. that's how Google succeeded right? leveraging common platforms and hardware to their highly specialized software combo.
ajb 8y ago
This. The ARM server class chips were mostly developed vendors of networking chips - Cavium, Qualcomm, Broadcom - for things like NAT boxes, programmable routers, Deep Packet Inspection, etc. They have a very high core count and proportionately less cache than standard server chips, but have been morphing to tackle more standard server loads.

imtringued 8y ago

Just get a x86 laptop if you care about energy efficiency that much. ARM desktops [0] that do what you want cost more than $1200. [0] https://www.96boards.org/product/developerbox/ https://www.96boards.org/product/developerbox/

incompatible 8y ago
That's unfortunate. I found a Snapdragon 850 CPU but it seems it's only intended for Windows laptops.
guiriduro 8y ago
You could strap together 3x ROCKPro64s (6 cores, 4GB, $80 each) to make a half decent docker swarm or kube, if you've got the right kind of parallelizable dev workload.
- incompatible 8y ago
  That's more or less what I was looking for. There's a SATA adapter for $10: https://www.pine64.org/?product=rockpro64-pci-e-to-dual-sata-ii-interface-card https://www.pine64.org/?product=rockpro64-pci-e-to-dual-sata... However, I'm not sure how it would perform compared to my somewhat obsolete AMD Athlon II X2 260, and other posts have convinced me the power savings wouldn't necessarily be significant enough to pay for it.

lazyjones 8y ago

For the average desktop PC user (excluding gamers), the electricity costs for the CPU itself are probably largely irrelevant. A well-built modern PC will use less than 10-15W while idle (i.e. while you are reading this), meanwhile typical 27" displays will consume 30W or more.

blattimwind 8y ago
> For the average desktop PC user (excluding gamers), the electricity costs for the CPU itself are probably largely irrelevant. Using average German electricity price (which are some of the most expensive you can have) of 0.33 EUR / kWh, even if you are playing six hours a day with an average power consumption of 400 W (which you can only reach using a high-end PC and a big, bright monitor), you would still pay less than one Euro per day on electricity for that. The cost of the hardware makes that operating cost pretty much irrelevant.