4 ms·

Probably better to get a new Ryzen processor and motherboard for around the same price.

by techntoke 7y ago

jchw 7y ago
I love Ryzen but having more mid range machines on CPU architectures that aren’t AMD64 is a huge net gain for everyone.
- alacombe 7y ago
  How so ? Brandishing "diversity" as the epitome of progress is close to nonsensical. My workstation requires 4 4k output, both HDMI 2,0 and display-port, and decent OpenGL & other hardware accelelation support. There is no way I'm ever going to get this working out of the box with a fancy architecture. Yes, I'm using proprietary binary-only software, but I my line of work involve CAD+CAM, not re-invent the wheel. Even industrial system I'm working on right now will use standard off-the shelf part (read x86 or rasppi-like sbc) and STANDARD interfaces, because I don't want to lock myself with a vendor. If the main system crash, I can replace it within 12h with a crappy old system and limit downtime.
  - jchw 7y ago
    You don’t have to buy this new system. You may continue buying whatever hardware you already buy, effective immediately, indefinitely. I didn’t realize my Hacker News comments had power to prevent folks from doing that to begin with! > Brandishing "diversity" as the epitome of progress is close to nonsensical. Man, it really sounds like you have some things you might want to talk about with a therapist. I haven’t even used the word “diversity” that I can find. All I’m suggesting is maybe an instruction set design that has cruft going back decades might actually not be the global maximum of ISA design, and that there might be real gains by trying to apply modern high-performance processor engineering to a different application ISA. That’s it. The market gets to decide if another ISA will hit critical mass. This is not especially likely for the most part, but I definitely support the research. I’m sorry for all of the snark but really, I am blown away at some of the responses this has garnered. I hope you all realize that this machines existence is not a threat to basically anyone.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Is that true? It increases the load on developers.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Diversity of options is a longer-term tradeoff; it is more expensive in the short term, agreed, but it helps keep the industry from getting stuck in a rut. If you like, it keeps us from getting stuck in local minima, albeit at the cost of not getting to use local minima.
  - jchw 7y ago
    Not really, at least until end users are buying ARM machines. But honestly, I think this bit is overplayed. An extreme majority of modern developers writing software that runs on consumer computers are not writing assembly language, and most of them aren’t even writing code in languages that compile AOT to machine code. I’d argue most of the things people use nowadays run in the browser. Desktop isn’t even the hot new thing anymore, mobile is (or, at least, was.) Ans as fate would have it, mobile platforms are dominated by ARM already. Many modern developers already deal with ARM as it is. Going further down the rabbit hole, I’d argue that most applications aren’t even nearly CPU bound and would run just fine with emulation, and nobody will bat an eye. This isn’t really theoretical, considering there exists x86 emulation in ARM Windows 10. And finally, most open source software already runs on many architectures, just look at how many architectures Debian supports. It does increase load on developers, but not to a degree that would make the benefits to competition unworthy. I think a good amount of developers are capable enough to figure out how to cross compile. Architectural splits are not new. Apple did it twice already with Mac, and while there’s no evidence of a third one on the horizon yet, it’s certainly not beyond them. And hell, maybe in the future, developers largely won’t ship architecture-dependent binaries. It is yet to be seen what might happen with WebAssembly and similar technology.
    - alacombe 7y ago
      And then you end up requiring a binary-only library, or can't upgrade with the whatever PCI-e device because no drivers and that's the end of the ARM adventure...
- snaky 7y ago
  What's the point to have slower mid-range machine for the same price? Do we need 16-core PIC16 Mini ATX workstation too?
  - unixhero 7y ago
    Maybe you don't, but the world does.
  - jchw 7y ago
    Because if we don’t have any architecture competition, innovation is limited to what can be done while remaining compatible with IBM PC DOS. There should be competition. The Intel-compatible monoculture is a bug, not a feature. >Do we need 16-core PIC16 Mini ATX workstation too? Now this is just garbage. I doubt you are really ignorant enough to believe modern ARM cores are effectively in the same class as PIC16. But honestly, unless you have a vested interest in the failure of non-Intel-based architectures, then what do you care? Why the intellectual hostility? Why are we asking “why” instead of “why not?” I like ARM. I would buy this machine.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    > Do we need 16-core PIC16 Mini ATX workstation too? If it were usable for my workloads (running *nix, basically), I would absolutely love that. ...I admit, I'm struggling to think how to scale PIC up that much, and IIRC doesn't it use Harvard architecture? That'd be a struggle. But anyways, yes, if we could make it work then that would be beautiful.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - klez 7y ago
      > IIRC doesn't it use Harvard architecture? Indeed it does. PIC32, on the other hand, doesn't.

Probably better to get a new Ryzen processor and motherboard for around the same price.

jchw 7y ago

I love Ryzen but having more mid range machines on CPU architectures that aren’t AMD64 is a huge net gain for everyone.

alacombe 7y ago
How so ? Brandishing "diversity" as the epitome of progress is close to nonsensical. My workstation requires 4 4k output, both HDMI 2,0 and display-port, and decent OpenGL & other hardware accelelation support. There is no way I'm ever going to get this working out of the box with a fancy architecture. Yes, I'm using proprietary binary-only software, but I my line of work involve CAD+CAM, not re-invent the wheel. Even industrial system I'm working on right now will use standard off-the shelf part (read x86 or rasppi-like sbc) and STANDARD interfaces, because I don't want to lock myself with a vendor. If the main system crash, I can replace it within 12h with a crappy old system and limit downtime.
- jchw 7y ago
  You don’t have to buy this new system. You may continue buying whatever hardware you already buy, effective immediately, indefinitely. I didn’t realize my Hacker News comments had power to prevent folks from doing that to begin with! > Brandishing "diversity" as the epitome of progress is close to nonsensical. Man, it really sounds like you have some things you might want to talk about with a therapist. I haven’t even used the word “diversity” that I can find. All I’m suggesting is maybe an instruction set design that has cruft going back decades might actually not be the global maximum of ISA design, and that there might be real gains by trying to apply modern high-performance processor engineering to a different application ISA. That’s it. The market gets to decide if another ISA will hit critical mass. This is not especially likely for the most part, but I definitely support the research. I’m sorry for all of the snark but really, I am blown away at some of the responses this has garnered. I hope you all realize that this machines existence is not a threat to basically anyone.
whatshisface 7y ago
Is that true? It increases the load on developers.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Diversity of options is a longer-term tradeoff; it is more expensive in the short term, agreed, but it helps keep the industry from getting stuck in a rut. If you like, it keeps us from getting stuck in local minima, albeit at the cost of not getting to use local minima.
- jchw 7y ago
  Not really, at least until end users are buying ARM machines. But honestly, I think this bit is overplayed. An extreme majority of modern developers writing software that runs on consumer computers are not writing assembly language, and most of them aren’t even writing code in languages that compile AOT to machine code. I’d argue most of the things people use nowadays run in the browser. Desktop isn’t even the hot new thing anymore, mobile is (or, at least, was.) Ans as fate would have it, mobile platforms are dominated by ARM already. Many modern developers already deal with ARM as it is. Going further down the rabbit hole, I’d argue that most applications aren’t even nearly CPU bound and would run just fine with emulation, and nobody will bat an eye. This isn’t really theoretical, considering there exists x86 emulation in ARM Windows 10. And finally, most open source software already runs on many architectures, just look at how many architectures Debian supports. It does increase load on developers, but not to a degree that would make the benefits to competition unworthy. I think a good amount of developers are capable enough to figure out how to cross compile. Architectural splits are not new. Apple did it twice already with Mac, and while there’s no evidence of a third one on the horizon yet, it’s certainly not beyond them. And hell, maybe in the future, developers largely won’t ship architecture-dependent binaries. It is yet to be seen what might happen with WebAssembly and similar technology.
  - alacombe 7y ago
    And then you end up requiring a binary-only library, or can't upgrade with the whatever PCI-e device because no drivers and that's the end of the ARM adventure...
snaky 7y ago
What's the point to have slower mid-range machine for the same price? Do we need 16-core PIC16 Mini ATX workstation too?
- unixhero 7y ago
  Maybe you don't, but the world does.
- jchw 7y ago
  Because if we don’t have any architecture competition, innovation is limited to what can be done while remaining compatible with IBM PC DOS. There should be competition. The Intel-compatible monoculture is a bug, not a feature. >Do we need 16-core PIC16 Mini ATX workstation too? Now this is just garbage. I doubt you are really ignorant enough to believe modern ARM cores are effectively in the same class as PIC16. But honestly, unless you have a vested interest in the failure of non-Intel-based architectures, then what do you care? Why the intellectual hostility? Why are we asking “why” instead of “why not?” I like ARM. I would buy this machine.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  > Do we need 16-core PIC16 Mini ATX workstation too? If it were usable for my workloads (running *nix, basically), I would absolutely love that. ...I admit, I'm struggling to think how to scale PIC up that much, and IIRC doesn't it use Harvard architecture? That'd be a struggle. But anyways, yes, if we could make it work then that would be beautiful.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - klez 7y ago
    > IIRC doesn't it use Harvard architecture? Indeed it does. PIC32, on the other hand, doesn't.