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Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

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Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#151

Post by mhh__ »

marcodiego wrote: post #94
maxpert wrote: post #5

Intel is gonna be in deep trouble in couple of years. They are the PowerPC of modern era. IDK what held them back from reimagining the architecture for less power hungry processors and tooling. With Mac mainstream switching to ARM and Microsoft doing something similar, I think within next 5 - 10 years ARM is gonna take over Intel architecture in general.

Apple is using their own cores, Google is using thei own cores, Amazon is using their own cores, I bet Microsoft is next... Eventually these new chips will hit the desktop and then we'll see the x86 start to sink.

Amazon are using their own cores as in the Arm Neoverse series?

Apple are the leaders in terms of arm microarchitecture.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#152

Post by PeterisP »

eecc wrote: post #82
PeterisP wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO server marketshare is much more fickle than the consumer one. For consumers, compatibility is a big issue and hard to switch unless a myriad of things work properly. For servers, if just a single commonly used system (e.g. mariadb or wordpress) works and you can do it 10% cheaper, companies can replace large quantities of hardware to a completely different architecture.

Yeah, but big companies have long lifecycle and bundling contracts that makes them more resistant to change.

I was thinking about the fact that more and more companies are renting compute from e.g. AWS - so for them switching to a different architecture can be as easy as changing a single parameter in a config file, if the cloud provider offers it a bit cheaper.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#154

Post by thuccess129 »

brucehoult wrote: post #147
smackeyacky wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In CPU choices, when Apple have lead (PowerPC) nobody followed. Their other CPU choices have hardly been brave. 6502? Not the first. 680x0? Followers. Intel they were way behind and all their laptop and desktop gear was a generation behind everything other companies were using. Phones bit of a mixed bag but their computing gear has always been a bit old hat since the 1980s. The M1 is the first time since PowerPC they…

Apple not the first with 6502? The 6502 was introduced at Wescon in September 1975. Apple I was out in April 1976. That's seven months. The KIM1, a board made by MOS to demonstrate their 6502 chip, was also released in April 1976. Even they didn't beat Apple to it. Commodore Pet was December 1977. Rockwell AIM65 was 1978. Acorn System 1 was March 1979. Atari 400 was November 1979 In short: I don't know what the heck…

In the era of Steve Jobs's second stint at Apple as the interim head, the Mac was designed on the very expensive Sun workstation.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#155

Post by aphistic »

easygenes wrote: post #21
maxpert wrote: post #5

Intel is gonna be in deep trouble in couple of years. They are the PowerPC of modern era. IDK what held them back from reimagining the architecture for less power hungry processors and tooling. With Mac mainstream switching to ARM and Microsoft doing something similar, I think within next 5 - 10 years ARM is gonna take over Intel architecture in general.

Macs are still a relatively small (but profitable) chunk of the computing world. The ground Intel has lost in desktop and mobile is more than made up for by their utter dominance in server. Intel also has a lot of plays that should bear fruit in holding or retaking ground on consumer compute in the next few years: 1) Arc GPUs. Looks like they will be seriously disruptive. 2) Hedging their process node bets by using T…

> 1) Arc GPUs. Looks like they will be seriously disruptive.

I'm curious to read more about this. Everything I've seen about Intel's new discrete GPUs makes it sound like it'll be more of the same when compared to AMD and nvidia, and potentially not even as powerful.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#156

Post by paradite »

knolax wrote: post #101
paradite wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These names usually come from Chinese mythology and Wuxia, which carries a sense of national/cultural pride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia Xuantie probably came from Xuxia, and is widely used in pop culture (games especially) for metals that have special mystical properties.

By your logic a World of Warcraft reference is also nationalistic. Western engineers can make the most convoluted cultural references possible with no criticism but something as innocuous as naming a processor after a fictional metal attracts accusationa of nationalism.

I must apologize if I made you feel like it is a criticism. I think national/cultural pride is a pretty positive thing, at least in China.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#157

Post by paradite »

liuw wrote: post #102
paradite wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These names usually come from Chinese mythology and Wuxia, which carries a sense of national/cultural pride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia Xuantie probably came from Xuxia, and is widely used in pop culture (games especially) for metals that have special mystical properties.

武侠 (Wuxia) culture is big in Alibaba. Everyone has a 花名 (alias / nickname) in the company. In the early days, people just picked names from 金庸 (Jin Yong)'s novels. Jack Ma's 花名 is 风清扬, who is a great sword master in one of the novels. Source: I had a short stint there. Picking 玄铁, which also comes from Jin Yong's novel, seems rather natural in that context. Jin Yong's novels are very popular in Chinese speaking count…

Yes, I agree that it is the natural thing to do. Maybe building / reaffirming cultural identity through these names is what I was trying to convey.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#158

Post by smackeyacky »

brucehoult wrote: post #147
smackeyacky wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In CPU choices, when Apple have lead (PowerPC) nobody followed. Their other CPU choices have hardly been brave. 6502? Not the first. 680x0? Followers. Intel they were way behind and all their laptop and desktop gear was a generation behind everything other companies were using. Phones bit of a mixed bag but their computing gear has always been a bit old hat since the 1980s. The M1 is the first time since PowerPC they…

Apple not the first with 6502? The 6502 was introduced at Wescon in September 1975. Apple I was out in April 1976. That's seven months. The KIM1, a board made by MOS to demonstrate their 6502 chip, was also released in April 1976. Even they didn't beat Apple to it. Commodore Pet was December 1977. Rockwell AIM65 was 1978. Acorn System 1 was March 1979. Atari 400 was November 1979 In short: I don't know what the heck…

So, they are batting 50% either being first with a dead end (6502, PowerPC) or being late (68000, Intel). Not exactly a stellar record of innovation in CPU adoption.

If the pattern holds the M1 is due to be a dead end.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#159

Post by bubblethink »

loeg wrote: post #45
PeterisP wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO server marketshare is much more fickle than the consumer one. For consumers, compatibility is a big issue and hard to switch unless a myriad of things work properly. For servers, if just a single commonly used system (e.g. mariadb or wordpress) works and you can do it 10% cheaper, companies can replace large quantities of hardware to a completely different architecture.

Server marketshare has been fairly sticky -- despite AMD offering low-risk, same ISA migration, and attractive pricing, the server market was relatively slow to adopt Zen.

AMD doesn't have any product to go around. And this was true even before covid.

Re: Alibaba Open Source XuanTie RISC-V Cores, Introduces In-House Armv9 Server Chip

#160

Post by no_time »

knolax wrote: post #101
paradite wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These names usually come from Chinese mythology and Wuxia, which carries a sense of national/cultural pride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia Xuantie probably came from Xuxia, and is widely used in pop culture (games especially) for metals that have special mystical properties.

By your logic a World of Warcraft reference is also nationalistic. Western engineers can make the most convoluted cultural references possible with no criticism but something as innocuous as naming a processor after a fictional metal attracts accusationa of nationalism.

Americans have their fair share of nationalistic names.

The original Xbox was codenamed Midway for obvious reasons. :^)

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