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> In reality I could fill a rack with these arm blades or have two quad socket x86/amd64 servers be equivalent or better Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively

> In reality I could fill a rack with these arm blades or have two quad socket x86/amd64 servers be equivalent or better Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive, but in the price per performance assessment you might be right (at least if you do not consider the expensive high-end x86 CPUs). The ARM blades look interesting for bare metal clouds though.

wtracy 13y ago
> Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive Is there an engineering reason for this, or is there just not enough volume for those boards to be economical?
- lazyjones 13y ago
  I'd vouch for the 3rd possibility: the prices are artificially high because the customers who buy these configurations can afford to pay the premium.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    This. Purchasers of the highest-end and/or costly experimental architectures tend to be research institutions or national labs that are using grant money.
    - wmf 13y ago
      In the case of quad-socket, it's actually enterprises running SQL databases and VMware consolidation where the cost of the software license exceeds the cost of the server.
    - michaelt 13y ago
      Most corporations are happy to spend on the highest end hardware when it's cheaper than spending developer salary on performance.
- jlawer 13y ago
  I've been told its intel (Admittedly by my Dell Engineer). The CPUs & Chipsets to run quad socket are marked up much higher then the dual / single socket options.
voidlogic 13y ago
>Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive Less expensive then a rack of these new ARM blades. Still, lets take quad socket off the table, 4 2U dual socket x86/amd64 boxes still is a better value proposition.
- lazyjones 13y ago
  > 4 2U dual socket x86/amd64 boxes still is a better value proposition. Not if you're aiming at a good density (processing power per rack). But there are many blade options (8 boards in 3U, or 4 in 2U from Supermicro e.g.) for x86 that will fit the bill, yes. The cost for the vendor should be much lower with ARM CPUs though (the CPUs will probably be dirt cheap, while Intel's aren't).
  - voidlogic 13y ago
    >Not if you're aiming at a good density Context: I'm talking about relative to ARM blades, not denser x86 options. >The cost for the vendor should be much lower with ARM CPUs though (the CPUs will probably be dirt cheap, while Intel's aren't). Maybe for the vendor, but these ARM blades boxes are expensive for the consumer! Lets compare two 2U boxes, one with 48 1.6 GHz ARM SoC and one with dual six-core Xeons with SMT (HT) at lets say 2.8 GHz, that is 48 logical cores. The x86/amd64 box in this comparison is: 0. Much cheaper! 1. Low latency at low loads 2. Similar throughput and latency at high loads 3. Uses less power 4. Easier to maintain
Sssnake 13y ago
>Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive What? You can get a 1U, 4x16 core, 256GB server for ten grand. http://www.thinkmate.com/system/a+-server-1042g-tf http://www.thinkmate.com/system/a+-server-1042g-tf

wtracy 13y ago

> Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive Is there an engineering reason for this, or is there just not enough volume for those boards to be economical?

lazyjones 13y ago
I'd vouch for the 3rd possibility: the prices are artificially high because the customers who buy these configurations can afford to pay the premium.
- ams6110 13y ago
  This. Purchasers of the highest-end and/or costly experimental architectures tend to be research institutions or national labs that are using grant money.
  - wmf 13y ago
    In the case of quad-socket, it's actually enterprises running SQL databases and VMware consolidation where the cost of the software license exceeds the cost of the server.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    Most corporations are happy to spend on the highest end hardware when it's cheaper than spending developer salary on performance.
jlawer 13y ago
I've been told its intel (Admittedly by my Dell Engineer). The CPUs & Chipsets to run quad socket are marked up much higher then the dual / single socket options.

voidlogic 13y ago

>Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive Less expensive then a rack of these new ARM blades. Still, lets take quad socket off the table, 4 2U dual socket x86/amd64 boxes still is a better value proposition.

lazyjones 13y ago
> 4 2U dual socket x86/amd64 boxes still is a better value proposition. Not if you're aiming at a good density (processing power per rack). But there are many blade options (8 boards in 3U, or 4 in 2U from Supermicro e.g.) for x86 that will fit the bill, yes. The cost for the vendor should be much lower with ARM CPUs though (the CPUs will probably be dirt cheap, while Intel's aren't).
- voidlogic 13y ago
  >Not if you're aiming at a good density Context: I'm talking about relative to ARM blades, not denser x86 options. >The cost for the vendor should be much lower with ARM CPUs though (the CPUs will probably be dirt cheap, while Intel's aren't). Maybe for the vendor, but these ARM blades boxes are expensive for the consumer! Lets compare two 2U boxes, one with 48 1.6 GHz ARM SoC and one with dual six-core Xeons with SMT (HT) at lets say 2.8 GHz, that is 48 logical cores. The x86/amd64 box in this comparison is: 0. Much cheaper! 1. Low latency at low loads 2. Similar throughput and latency at high loads 3. Uses less power 4. Easier to maintain

Sssnake 13y ago

>Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive What? You can get a 1U, 4x16 core, 256GB server for ten grand. http://www.thinkmate.com/system/a+-server-1042g-tf http://www.thinkmate.com/system/a+-server-1042g-tf