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Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

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Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#61

Post by readittwice »

tonysdg wrote: post #21

I've run experiments/developed on both Applied Micro's X-Gene 1 and Cavium's ThunderX (the original). Both of these have been touted as "ARM servers". The X-Gene was complete crap in terms of both performance and power consumption. The ThunderX was only really useful for highly-parallel applications that don't require a lot of horsepower, and even then it's a power hog. I'm cautiously optimistic with Qualcomm's Centr…

I am not sure if you have seen this review from Qualcomm's Centriq by Cloudflare, but at least for others it might be interesting: https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm-takes-wing/

In the conclusion they mention: "The largest win by far for Falkor is the low power consumption." (Falkor is the name of Qualcomm's Core).

Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#62

Post by grkvlt »

Cyberdog wrote: post #11
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The iMac Pro will have an ARM co-processor: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/19/imac-pro-a10-chip-hey-s... . - Arguably for "Hey Siri" and other mobile-inspired functionality, but wouldn't it be interesting if it were also an ARM-on-the-desktop beachhead? The current MBP already has ARM: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/apples-new-intel-driven-ma... But this is similar to ARM (or MIPS or whatever) cores that alre…

I care about performance in my phone too, so where can I buy an Intel phone? The truth is that my phone doesn't have to be the fastest; it just has to be fast enough in balance with other factors important to me (size, battery life, etc). And the same goes with my laptop. I currently have an MBP with an i7 processor, and I'm a web developer - it's overkill. I also play games with it now and then, but it's clear that…

I've had Intel phones running Android. For example the Asus ZenFone as mentioned below, also the Lenovo K80. [0] I also used to have a Motorola RAZR ages ago, that I think was one of the first Intel powered phones? Not just phones, watches with x86 series Intel CPUs exist! The Tag Modular 45 [2] has an Intel Atom Z3400 [3] in it...

0. https://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_k80-7216.php

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR_i

2. https://www.tagheuer.com/en-us/watches/tag-heuer-connected-m...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(system_on_chip)

Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#63

Post by cat199 »

frankharv wrote: post #54
ece wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the amount of hardware standardization that still needs to happen. Having a different image for each manufacturer's hardware is going to get real old, real fast. 5+ years on, ARM on anywhere but mobile seems like a dud.

I just wrote a Device Tree Overlay for a Real Time Clock module on FreeBSD RPI3. There is something to be said for PNP hardware. Who would imagine that the computer industry would go so far back in time as to leave off the RTC. Oh but wait they added Bluetooth and Wifi. Yet no system time. Still waiting for a PCIe bus as well... Guess I need some more of that koolaide they are drinking.

> Still waiting for a PCIe bus as well

RPI3 is not a 'server grade' ARM -

See e.g. the AMD 'Opteron A' boards:

http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html#params

    CPU Quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 64 bit
	
    DRAM Two DDR3 SO-DIMM sockets
	
    SATA Two SATA ports
	
    USB Two USB 3.0 ports
	
    Console USB-micro port for console support
	
    Ethernet 1 GBe Ethernet
	
    PCIe x16 PCIe G3 slot
not sure about the RTC, but the PI is way far from any of the arm 'standardization' efforts, being a low end 'standard' unto itself..

Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#64

Post by cat199 »

throw2016 wrote: post #36

ARM on desktop or server will be tightly controlled closed SOCs with zero driver support. These will be nothing like the relatively open systems in the PC world, so there is nothing to look forward to. This is ARM's model and they have shown no interest in improving things beyond kicking open source developers between the ARM and SOC vendors each blaming the other for years on end. Intel, even with something as nasty…

> This is ARM's model

ARM's model is to develop/license the ARM processor ISA - What the vendors choose to do with this is their own business.

Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#65

Post by tremon »

tonysdg wrote: post #21

I've run experiments/developed on both Applied Micro's X-Gene 1 and Cavium's ThunderX (the original). Both of these have been touted as "ARM servers". The X-Gene was complete crap in terms of both performance and power consumption. The ThunderX was only really useful for highly-parallel applications that don't require a lot of horsepower, and even then it's a power hog. I'm cautiously optimistic with Qualcomm's Centr…

Not all workloads require powerful CPU's: there are plenty of servers that are bandwith-limited (either network or I/O), like static webserving or mail-relay, and plenty workloads where performance is of secondary concern (like out-of-band batch processing, backup systems).

Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#66

Post by Risinia »

MarkyC4 wrote: post #34
melling wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you simply need to add an optional large screen, keyboard, and mouse to your phone. It has already been done. Now it just needs to be done a little better? https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/

See also: Microsoft Continuum, Motorola Atrix (probably the first Android that turned into a laptop)

Yay, and with Emui and DeX growing up, it seems to be next revolution about smartphones replacing your PC's. For instance, the Mirabook from Miraxess : https://miraxess.com/samsung-note-8-laptop/

Re: Cavium Is an Arm Server Contender

#67

Post by andreiw »

hawski wrote: post #60
andreiw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly why the Arm servers adopt the same specs or functional equivs to x86. A single binary distribution of an OS will boot on any SBSA compatible machine - because all the weird bits are hidden through ACPI, UEFI and PSCI. No BSPs. I’d go as far as saying Arm servers are compatible to x86 designs at a platform level (eg. how PCIe and config space are wired up, how caches and DMA work, NUMA, SMP, MSI(X), and…

Is there any hope that it could be used to some extent on smartphones? Or maybe there is a similar effort in that space? I understand that some works may be hard to miniaturize.

IMO yes. Although SBSA and SBBR target the servers, already smaller gear (think vCPE, set top box and IoT gateway chips) are adopting the specs as well, and I anticipate adoption everywhere except devices where a) cost is everything b) power and perf need to be squeezed out even at the cost of maintainability. At some point following the everything-needs-its-own-BSP mentality for embedded SoCs will start hurting the bottom line, because there will be plenty of competitors willing to make more “normal”-looking gear.
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