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The author's description of what is a "desktop system" sounded a lot like a "no true Scotsman" to me. I've had several desktop systems that didn't meet all of t

by cesarb 7y ago

The author's description of what is a "desktop system" sounded a lot like a "no true Scotsman" to me. I've had several desktop systems that didn't meet all of the author's criteria - in fact, I've had desktop systems that met none of these criteria. And these systems did meet what most people would consider to be "desktop systems": box shaped, designed to be put over or under the desk, tethered (no built-in battery other than the RTC battery), internally expansible (not all-in-ones or NUCs), with a x86-32 or x86-64 processor, and booting with traditional BIOS and/or UEFI.

hootbootscoot 7y ago
indeed. onboard audio is questionable in quality typically anyway, being some strange monstrosity (ac97 lol... intel-hd-anything)
wyldfire 7y ago
That just means that he used a poor term or didn't qualify it. Ultimately those features are the desired ones. So that's what they are looking for, regardless of what it's called.
wolrah 7y ago
I disagree, the author's description matches the majority of x86 motherboards in production, and if you were to wander in to a random computer store and ask for a standard desktop PC you'd be led to an array of machines that met all of those requirements. If it's not "small form factor" it almost certainly checks all the boxes. I agree with the author, what AArch64 (or any alternative architecture) really needs to be taken seriously for more than "toy" or "appliance" type use cases is a real desktop board that an interested party could swap in place of the motherboard of one of their old PCs without having to invest in a pile of adapters. To me, that means the following: * Standard ATX or MicroATX formfactor * Standard ATX power input * At least two standard DIMM or SODIMM slots, preferably four * At least 32 lanes of PCIe 3.0 or greater, exposed as at least one x16 and one x4 slot plus one x4 M.2, leaving eight lanes for onboard accessories or more slots as desired * At least two SATA channels, preferably four * At least one copper gigabit ethernet interface * At least six USB 3.0 ports, preferably more and faster. * Onboard audio sufficient for watching Youtube or participating in a VoIP/videoconference call. Since I'm pretty sure that providing video from power on rather than after the OS loads requires support in the video card itself, onboard video of some sort is probably also a requirement for now as well. Specifics don't matter, but it should be able to handle an accelerated desktop and video decoding.
- timthorn 7y ago
  So something like this? https://e.huawei.com/en/products/servers/kunpeng/kunpeng-desktop-board https://e.huawei.com/en/products/servers/kunpeng/kunpeng-des...
  - wolrah 7y ago
    Yes, that does seem to be pretty much exactly what I'd want out of an ARM desktop platform. It would be nice if they'd offer more cores in the desktop variant of the board, and anything that has a "contact us for pricing" link annoys the crap out of me, but it does meet the specs.

by cesarb 7y ago

hootbootscoot 7y ago

indeed. onboard audio is questionable in quality typically anyway, being some strange monstrosity (ac97 lol... intel-hd-anything)

wyldfire 7y ago

That just means that he used a poor term or didn't qualify it. Ultimately those features are the desired ones. So that's what they are looking for, regardless of what it's called.

wolrah 7y ago

I disagree, the author's description matches the majority of x86 motherboards in production, and if you were to wander in to a random computer store and ask for a standard desktop PC you'd be led to an array of machines that met all of those requirements. If it's not "small form factor" it almost certainly checks all the boxes. I agree with the author, what AArch64 (or any alternative architecture) really needs to be taken seriously for more than "toy" or "appliance" type use cases is a real desktop board that an interested party could swap in place of the motherboard of one of their old PCs without having to invest in a pile of adapters. To me, that means the following: * Standard ATX or MicroATX formfactor * Standard ATX power input * At least two standard DIMM or SODIMM slots, preferably four * At least 32 lanes of PCIe 3.0 or greater, exposed as at least one x16 and one x4 slot plus one x4 M.2, leaving eight lanes for onboard accessories or more slots as desired * At least two SATA channels, preferably four * At least one copper gigabit ethernet interface * At least six USB 3.0 ports, preferably more and faster. * Onboard audio sufficient for watching Youtube or participating in a VoIP/videoconference call. Since I'm pretty sure that providing video from power on rather than after the OS loads requires support in the video card itself, onboard video of some sort is probably also a requirement for now as well. Specifics don't matter, but it should be able to handle an accelerated desktop and video decoding.

timthorn 7y ago
So something like this? https://e.huawei.com/en/products/servers/kunpeng/kunpeng-desktop-board https://e.huawei.com/en/products/servers/kunpeng/kunpeng-des...
- wolrah 7y ago
  Yes, that does seem to be pretty much exactly what I'd want out of an ARM desktop platform. It would be nice if they'd offer more cores in the desktop variant of the board, and anything that has a "contact us for pricing" link annoys the crap out of me, but it does meet the specs.