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As we are witnessing multiple relatively small companies entering the server CPU market, it would be a really great thing if they could standardize on a compati

As we are witnessing multiple relatively small companies entering the server CPU market, it would be a really great thing if they could standardize on a compatible socket. This way, instead of designing a motherboard for a single CPU vendor in a small market, integrators could target all of them at once. Intel reportedly keeps changing sockets to please OEMs who want to sell motherboards; I would be happy to see something change in that landscape. Otherwise, I'm extremely pleased to see more options are starting to become viable (again).

cameron_b 5y ago
If you abstract that ask just a bit there is already an answer, although it's more of an industrial answer. the COM-Express Spec is something of this Universal socket [0] And while all of that link above looks like a creamy beige box cringefest, the COM-HPC[1] interface is being used for some heavy-hitting systems including Xeon and Ampere Altra [2] So, yea, you can get this in something more interoperable. 0 - https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-express/ https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-express/ 1 - https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc/ https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc/ 2 - https://www.ipi.wiki/pages/com-hpc-altra https://www.ipi.wiki/pages/com-hpc-altra
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > If you abstract that ask just a bit there is already an answer, although it's more of an industrial answer. the COM-Express Spec is something of this Universal socket [0] So are PCIe slots, except GPUs seem to have won on that front (RIP Xeon Phi). Moving forward: PCIe 5.0 is having more-and-more atomic instructions execute over the PCIe 5.0 specification. Its looking like PCIe 5.0 will have cache-cohesive, in particular, the Compute Express Link (CXL). So PCIe is looking more-and-more like a "standardized socket", rather than an I/O mechanism.

cameron_b 5y ago

If you abstract that ask just a bit there is already an answer, although it's more of an industrial answer. the COM-Express Spec is something of this Universal socket [0] And while all of that link above looks like a creamy beige box cringefest, the COM-HPC[1] interface is being used for some heavy-hitting systems including Xeon and Ampere Altra [2] So, yea, you can get this in something more interoperable. 0 - https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-express/ https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-express/ 1 - https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc/ https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc/ 2 - https://www.ipi.wiki/pages/com-hpc-altra https://www.ipi.wiki/pages/com-hpc-altra

dragontamer 5y ago
> If you abstract that ask just a bit there is already an answer, although it's more of an industrial answer. the COM-Express Spec is something of this Universal socket [0] So are PCIe slots, except GPUs seem to have won on that front (RIP Xeon Phi). Moving forward: PCIe 5.0 is having more-and-more atomic instructions execute over the PCIe 5.0 specification. Its looking like PCIe 5.0 will have cache-cohesive, in particular, the Compute Express Link (CXL). So PCIe is looking more-and-more like a "standardized socket", rather than an I/O mechanism.