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A Raspberry Pi powered by something similar to the M1 or A14 bionic processor would be something. The Broadcom 1.5 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 that powe

A Raspberry Pi powered by something similar to the M1 or A14 bionic processor would be something. The Broadcom 1.5 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 that powers the latest raspberry pi, is nothing compared to the new processor beasts from Apple.

cecja 6y ago
You are comparing apples and raspberries the one thing costs 1k the other thing costs 50 bucks.
flyinghamster 6y ago
We already have the Mac Mini, but an A14-based SBC would be less of a stretch than an M1. A picoMac, so to speak? That would almost inevitably run MacOS by default rather than Linux, though. The GPU is make or break for Linux. No GPU means it's just another server in a different form factor.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  That's basically the Apple TV. Let that thing have more standard IO, and run Linux, and it'd be a heck of a fanless machine.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    The latest Apple TV has a fan :(
bayindirh 6y ago
While Raspberry Pi may not be as powerful as an M1, I'd not discount any of these small boards. I have a OrangePi Zero w/ 512MB RAM at home and it handles a lot of stuff (Syncthing, DNSMasq, rsync based backups and more) without a glitch. The only thing it doesn't like to handle SFTP encryption at high speeds. Processor gets visibly strained and overheats after a 4MB/s or so.
MisterTea 6y ago
An Ampere or other Arm server chip would fit the bill. Aside from Apple, no one is making arm chips to serve the laptop/desktop segment. So there's this HUGE gap between the endless sea of embedded/mobile Arm chips and then jumps to a handfull of mega-many-core server chips. Apple is finally filling in one of the Arm gaps with a mid-tier chip that can handle a desktop load efficiently while an efficient GPU can handle graphics without thermally clobbering each other.
- coder543 6y ago
  > Aside from Apple, no one is making arm chips to serve the laptop/desktop segment. You can argue that their chips in this segment are not very good, but Qualcomm is actually specifically addressing the laptop market, and they're not "no one". https://www.anandtech.com/show/15210/qualcomm-expands-lineup-of-socs-for-always-connected-pcs-7c-8c-platforms https://www.anandtech.com/show/15210/qualcomm-expands-lineup...

cecja 6y ago

You are comparing apples and raspberries the one thing costs 1k the other thing costs 50 bucks.

flyinghamster 6y ago

We already have the Mac Mini, but an A14-based SBC would be less of a stretch than an M1. A picoMac, so to speak? That would almost inevitably run MacOS by default rather than Linux, though. The GPU is make or break for Linux. No GPU means it's just another server in a different form factor.

geerlingguy 6y ago
That's basically the Apple TV. Let that thing have more standard IO, and run Linux, and it'd be a heck of a fanless machine.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  The latest Apple TV has a fan :(

bayindirh 6y ago

While Raspberry Pi may not be as powerful as an M1, I'd not discount any of these small boards. I have a OrangePi Zero w/ 512MB RAM at home and it handles a lot of stuff (Syncthing, DNSMasq, rsync based backups and more) without a glitch. The only thing it doesn't like to handle SFTP encryption at high speeds. Processor gets visibly strained and overheats after a 4MB/s or so.

MisterTea 6y ago

An Ampere or other Arm server chip would fit the bill. Aside from Apple, no one is making arm chips to serve the laptop/desktop segment. So there's this HUGE gap between the endless sea of embedded/mobile Arm chips and then jumps to a handfull of mega-many-core server chips. Apple is finally filling in one of the Arm gaps with a mid-tier chip that can handle a desktop load efficiently while an efficient GPU can handle graphics without thermally clobbering each other.

coder543 6y ago
> Aside from Apple, no one is making arm chips to serve the laptop/desktop segment. You can argue that their chips in this segment are not very good, but Qualcomm is actually specifically addressing the laptop market, and they're not "no one". https://www.anandtech.com/show/15210/qualcomm-expands-lineup-of-socs-for-always-connected-pcs-7c-8c-platforms https://www.anandtech.com/show/15210/qualcomm-expands-lineup...