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The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

anandtech.com

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Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#51

Post by Nabati »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #49
tlamponi wrote: post #48

So how are the cores interconnected? As ARM server designs love to throw out tens to hundreds of cores which sounds good on paper, but are not really useful to lots of workloads as they have a shit interconnect or lots of NUMA nodes. Interconnect is key, e.g., see the improvements between zen2 and zen3, especially for the `4 An anecdote: I got some hands on a box with a Cavium ThunderX2 96 logical core processor abou…

This is a dumb question. But as you've said, cores per die has a strong influence on how performant a system is and that's because of the processor interconnects. My question is, what are the processors saying to each other?

"knock knock" "who's there?"

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#52

Post by flyinghamster »

simon1573 wrote: post #18
boudin wrote: post #4

I love seeing those alternatives to x86, Intel an AMD showing up. After long years of nothing exciting on the CPU side until AMD released Zen, now the M1 from Apple and this, hardware feels exciting again. I also really like the fact that Ampere cpus are not something that will only live in one ecosystem (like the graviton that will, i guess, never exists outside of AWS or the M1 outside of Apple products). I really…

I'm excited as well. But as an earlier discussion pointed out I'm worried that the transition might impact the openness in PCs, e.g. locked bootloaders etc

Yup. Finding out that Big Sur phones home every time one opens an application is a showstopper for me, never mind Apple's ever-changing ports and its campaign against the right to repair.

We've also already seen that Microsoft considers ARM systems to be "special" enough to require locked bootloaders as well. Don't get me started on the mess in the smartphone world. I'd hate to see a world where the only "open" computing revolves around either Raspberry Pi-class SBCs or expensive datacenter servers, with no middle ground.

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#53

Post by privong »

Someone wrote: post #50
Sebb767 wrote: post #2

These things look awesome, but are pretty expensive, still. I'd love to put an ARM server in my homelab, but the price range between 100$ (RPi & Co) and 10000$ (enterprise server) seems pretty empty right now :/

Do I read the table on https://www.anandtech.com/show/16315/the-ampere-altra-review... incorrectly? To me, it says they have a system with 32 CPUs at 1.7 GHz for $800, and a whole range between $2,200 and $4,050.

I think that's the processor only? I'm basing that off the paragraph after the table, which says:

> AMD’s EPYC 7742 which still comes in at $6950

A couple quick searches (Amazon, Newegg) show people selling the CPU-only for this price. Since that's the price they're comparing to the table, I think the table prices are for the ARM CPU only.

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#54

Post by floatboth »

kumarvvr wrote: post #3

So, what OS do these run? Is it oem provided custom kernels or third party?

Anything that's SBSA compliant (supports ACPI, basically)… and ready to run on a massive machine with (for some reason) very sparsely populated huge physical memory address space.

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commit/d7704f9e75aafd312a... https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commit/5786fe85813a411327... https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commit/3ef92b2f0a0ff3f101... https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commit/1f181d2512f60098ed...

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#55

Post by floatboth »

SoapSeller wrote: post #29
Sebb767 wrote: post #2

These things look awesome, but are pretty expensive, still. I'd love to put an ARM server in my homelab, but the price range between 100$ (RPi & Co) and 10000$ (enterprise server) seems pretty empty right now :/

You can get SolidRun HoneyComb[0] for ~$1000, it has 16 cores with supposedly reasonable performance. [0] https://www.solid-run.com/arm-servers-networking-platforms/h...

Reasonable, but not exciting. Cortex-A72 is quite old by now. Just compare EC2 a1 instances vs. the newer ones.

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#56

Post by zdkl »

blodkorv wrote: post #30
txdv wrote: post #17

32cores for 800$, feasible for a nice home server rig

but really, in what way would 32 cores become useful in a home server, except running a bunch of VMs that do nothing or donate money in terms of electricity to folding@home

Beefy CPU, couple TB of HDDs and an SSD to boot off of: (comfortably) host your own private cloud. And probably a instance for your friends & family too if you're feeling adventurous. Via authenticated Tor Hidden Services, for optimum easy-safe ratio.

Now the value of a private cloud is a subjective question, true, but personal experience suggests having it right there on home lan encourages practical use, especially in a shared flat.

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#57

Post by acdha »

Retric wrote: post #46
acdha wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out management cost. Once you’re talking something more than a personal laptop the cost of administration needs to be factored in. This is where cloud environments have some big advantages since you’re not paying skilled people to run cables, debug firmware, swap parts, etc. Yes, you can still beat cloud (especially if you serve a lot of network traffic) but it’s not easy unless you’re giving up security, fe…

> run cables, debug firmware, swap parts, etc. Data centers already do that. You could build your own rack and send it to them, but the more common model is renting preconfigured servers on a monthly or annual basis with them swapping out broken hardware as needed etc. Cloud computing can save on administrative costs, but there is a huge world between building everything in house and AWS.

Data centers do that for additional costs. It can be a way to save if your needs are simple and don’t change but it’s also often a source of downtime or operational overhead since you’re looking at managing separate groups of people versus using an API.

You can definitely save money this way but it rarely ends up being as much as touted - double digit percentages, not whole multiples - unless you’re really bandwidth intensive.

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#59

Post by koeng »

tony-avantek wrote: post #58

Commercial Warning... Just in case anyone is interested in obtaining their own Altra system, they are available for pre-order here: https://store.avantek.co.uk/arm-servers.html

How about the Q32-17? For $800, it sounds like a pretty decent server and I am interested.

Re: The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

#60

Post by acomjean »

alkonaut wrote: post #41

How close are Intel to releasing anything that's a "next gen" core design and not just incremental design change or node shrink? When will Intel's "Zen2" arrive? Are there any rumors?

Hopefully they get it together. Competition is good for us consumers.

They could end up being a low end x86 vendor.

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