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> Within that power envelope you can pick up a more powerful tiny x86 board that takes up less space, probably costs less overall, and performs much better with

> Within that power envelope you can pick up a more powerful tiny x86 board that takes up less space, probably costs less overall, and performs much better without requiring you to coordinate your project across 4 separate tiny computers. I am convinced that Intel does not deliver on that. What tiny x86 board is comparable to the Raspberry Pi? I'm looking for excellent Linux support, with well documented GPIO/ADC/DACs, and as few closed-source hardwares as possible at a similar price point. If I want to talk directly to the ethernet controller (for example) then I should be able to look at the board's documentation without having to sign any NDA.

foxfluff 5y ago
So you have found docs for the Broadcom SoCs on the Pi without NDA? That would be newsworthy. The ethernet controller lives in the SoC btw, and talks to a phy. That's another boardcom chip. See if you can find a datasheet for BCM54210. The Pi is not open hardware, even the schematic is a joke. Broadcom is another way to spell "NDA" and "no docs for plebs." I don't know about price but you absolutely can find Mini-ITX (and smaller) Intel based systems that idle at 5-15 watts and perform better than the Pi. At $200 for the cluster board, $40 for the adapters, and ~$50 a pop times 4 for the CM4s, we're talking $400-$500 and that's not far off from the price of some of these low end x86-64 systems that -- yess -- are much faster than the Pi 4.
bri3d 5y ago
It's worth pointing out that the Pi isn't open by anyone's definition or any stretch of the imagination. But, it sounds like you want a Pi for the thing it's actually somewhat good at, which is not running Kubernetes on a 4-way cluster board with an ATX power supply. The Pi is nice because it's a bridge between microcontrollers and normal OS-grade computing. You can have a full desktop environment and also have GPIOs and SPI peripherals talking to the outside world. This is pretty cool and is a nice little niche to be in. I don't think anything really beats the Pi here - there are Rockchip and Allwinner based boards that compete, but they're all just different facets of the same gem so to speak. Once you stop using those microcontroller-style functionalities and bridges to the real world and start using the Pi as a cluster server, things don't really make sense anymore to me. I get why people do this for fun (just like back in the day people would set up MPI/Beowulf clusters of whatever cast-off vintage desktops they could find), but for practicality points, there's no good argument for the Pi IMO. Compared to this 4x cluster board, an Intel NUC 11 Tiger Canyon comes in at a similar price point, 3x+ the performance/watt, and at least 5x the performance (for real workloads that touch I/O, probably 10x or more).
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  >Compared to this 4x cluster board, an Intel NUC 11 Tiger Canyon comes in at a similar price point, 3x+ the performance/watt, and at least 5x the performance (for real workloads that touch I/O, probably 10x or more). google shopping says not. and is the i5 3x faster than 16 ARM cores at 25W (or any W)? (i have no idea - genuine question)
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    I'm finding the i5 NUC for around 450 EUR incl. VAT (notice EU prices for electronics are almost always higher than US, so you can't just take the US$ value of a Pi and do a direct conversion). I think you need to add RAM though. So it's a little bit more expensive than the four Pis plus adapters plus cluster boards, but very much in the same ballpark. The CPU in the NUC is i5-1135G7 with a typical TDP of 15W (but allegedly can go up to 28W), and scores 10174 in passmark CPU benchmark. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-1135G7+%40+2.40GHz&id=3830 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-1135G... We don't know total system power draw, but anecdotally these low power intels can be quite efficient (I have a fanless i7 system that idles around 10 watts and IIRC stays well below 20 watts at load). Android version of Passmark gives 751 points for the Pi 4's CPU: https://www.androidbenchmark.net/phone.php?phone=Raspberry+Pi+4 https://www.androidbenchmark.net/phone.php?phone=Raspberry+P... I don't know if that is comparable with the desktop version. But there's a Phoronix comparison of Pi 4 vs G5900, and G5900 scores 2750 in Passmark. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberr... If we generously eyeball these Phoronix charts, I'd say the Pi 4 is on average no more than 1/3 as fast as the G5900. If we translate that to Passmark points, the Pi would score around 900. I saw another Google result where a similar comparison was made and they also concluded that the Pi would be around 900 passmark points. So four Pis ganged together (assuming zero overhead) would score 3600 versus the i5-1135G7's 10k points. That's almost exactly 3x difference. TLDR is that yes, 10W-15W Intel CPUs are a lot more powerful than a Pi4 or even four Pi4s. And if you actually try to use them, the difference in performance is very evident.
    - 5y ago

foxfluff 5y ago

So you have found docs for the Broadcom SoCs on the Pi without NDA? That would be newsworthy. The ethernet controller lives in the SoC btw, and talks to a phy. That's another boardcom chip. See if you can find a datasheet for BCM54210. The Pi is not open hardware, even the schematic is a joke. Broadcom is another way to spell "NDA" and "no docs for plebs." I don't know about price but you absolutely can find Mini-ITX (and smaller) Intel based systems that idle at 5-15 watts and perform better than the Pi. At $200 for the cluster board, $40 for the adapters, and ~$50 a pop times 4 for the CM4s, we're talking $400-$500 and that's not far off from the price of some of these low end x86-64 systems that -- yess -- are much faster than the Pi 4.

bri3d 5y ago

It's worth pointing out that the Pi isn't open by anyone's definition or any stretch of the imagination. But, it sounds like you want a Pi for the thing it's actually somewhat good at, which is not running Kubernetes on a 4-way cluster board with an ATX power supply. The Pi is nice because it's a bridge between microcontrollers and normal OS-grade computing. You can have a full desktop environment and also have GPIOs and SPI peripherals talking to the outside world. This is pretty cool and is a nice little niche to be in. I don't think anything really beats the Pi here - there are Rockchip and Allwinner based boards that compete, but they're all just different facets of the same gem so to speak. Once you stop using those microcontroller-style functionalities and bridges to the real world and start using the Pi as a cluster server, things don't really make sense anymore to me. I get why people do this for fun (just like back in the day people would set up MPI/Beowulf clusters of whatever cast-off vintage desktops they could find), but for practicality points, there's no good argument for the Pi IMO. Compared to this 4x cluster board, an Intel NUC 11 Tiger Canyon comes in at a similar price point, 3x+ the performance/watt, and at least 5x the performance (for real workloads that touch I/O, probably 10x or more).

lowbloodsugar 5y ago
>Compared to this 4x cluster board, an Intel NUC 11 Tiger Canyon comes in at a similar price point, 3x+ the performance/watt, and at least 5x the performance (for real workloads that touch I/O, probably 10x or more). google shopping says not. and is the i5 3x faster than 16 ARM cores at 25W (or any W)? (i have no idea - genuine question)
- foxfluff 5y ago
  I'm finding the i5 NUC for around 450 EUR incl. VAT (notice EU prices for electronics are almost always higher than US, so you can't just take the US$ value of a Pi and do a direct conversion). I think you need to add RAM though. So it's a little bit more expensive than the four Pis plus adapters plus cluster boards, but very much in the same ballpark. The CPU in the NUC is i5-1135G7 with a typical TDP of 15W (but allegedly can go up to 28W), and scores 10174 in passmark CPU benchmark. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-1135G7+%40+2.40GHz&id=3830 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-1135G... We don't know total system power draw, but anecdotally these low power intels can be quite efficient (I have a fanless i7 system that idles around 10 watts and IIRC stays well below 20 watts at load). Android version of Passmark gives 751 points for the Pi 4's CPU: https://www.androidbenchmark.net/phone.php?phone=Raspberry+Pi+4 https://www.androidbenchmark.net/phone.php?phone=Raspberry+P... I don't know if that is comparable with the desktop version. But there's a Phoronix comparison of Pi 4 vs G5900, and G5900 scores 2750 in Passmark. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberr... If we generously eyeball these Phoronix charts, I'd say the Pi 4 is on average no more than 1/3 as fast as the G5900. If we translate that to Passmark points, the Pi would score around 900. I saw another Google result where a similar comparison was made and they also concluded that the Pi would be around 900 passmark points. So four Pis ganged together (assuming zero overhead) would score 3600 versus the i5-1135G7's 10k points. That's almost exactly 3x difference. TLDR is that yes, 10W-15W Intel CPUs are a lot more powerful than a Pi4 or even four Pi4s. And if you actually try to use them, the difference in performance is very evident.
  - 5y ago