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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

#111

Post by krageon »

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…

> utter dominance in server

Things are hesitantly shifting towards a more AMD-oriented lineup now. The enormous kickbacks and discounts don't (always) weigh up to the increasing performance differences.

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

#112

Post by ksec »

Symbiote wrote: post #96
easygenes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most purposes, electricity is almost a rounding error in datacenter asset management concerns. Server compute is expensive. It is all about performance. ARM is just starting to get competitive in that ballpark. So we will see. All of these ARM server chips are going to be very low on the pecking order for TSMC fab time, so they won't have the edge that Apple had by buying up the first slot on the latest manufactu…

The average consumer cost for 1kWh of electricity in the EU is 20¢. A well-used server might consume 500W on average. units '500W * 1 year * 0.20 €/kWh' '€' € 876 I'm sure businesses get a discount, but we haven't paid for cooling yet. This is hardly a rounding error.

>I'm sure businesses get a discount

Not as large as some may expect once you factor in power delivery guarantee and redundancy. But basically yes. Every single HyperScaler has been pointing out electricity as one of their largest item on their TCO, 2nd only to hardware cost.

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

#113

Post by zeckalpha »

smackeyacky wrote: post #85
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs are a small market, but Apple definitely sets trends. Once they adopt a technology, people "know" it works and it's safe to switch. If servers can run on cheap ARM hardware that uses less electricity and runs far cooler without much of a performance difference, that's a massive improvement. Electricity savings would more than justify a switch. Apple has shown that it's possible at the desktop/laptop level. Now t…

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…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad

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

#114

Post by ksec »

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.

>the server market was relatively slow to adopt Zen.

Is this finally an accepted truth now? I have been banging on about it for years that AMD are not doing good enough on Server. They will still gain a little more market share with Zen 4, but now Intel is coming back. The perfect opportunity windows is closing down.

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

#115

Post by easygenes »

oefrha wrote: post #86
easygenes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most purposes, electricity is almost a rounding error in datacenter asset management concerns. Server compute is expensive. It is all about performance. ARM is just starting to get competitive in that ballpark. So we will see. All of these ARM server chips are going to be very low on the pecking order for TSMC fab time, so they won't have the edge that Apple had by buying up the first slot on the latest manufactu…

Are you speaking from experience doing data center asset management or are you just speculating? I don’t know about data centers, but for colocation, electricity cost is far from a rounding error. Also, cooling is a major factor that is directly related to power consumption, as pointed out by siblings.

See [1], figure 1 there is a fairly typical data center costs breakdown at the highest level for TCO. Total energy is by far the lowest, at around 10-15%. Site infrastructure, IT infrastructure, and staff are the real cost priorities.

There's a caveat to that in the planning phase of a data center: A lot of the site infrastructure costs are a function of the total power requirement. So if - when building out a data center - you can get more power efficiency, then that does translate to a significant cost savings.

Cooling tends to be somewhere between a 20 and 60% add on to the direct power consumption of a server.

  1: https://www.missioncriticalmagazine.com/ext/resources/MC/Home/Files/PDFs/(TUI3011B)SimpleModelDetermingTrueTCO.pdf

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

#116

Post by ksec »

leeoniya wrote: post #23

> In-House Armv9? https://semianalysis.com/the-semiconductor-heist-of-the-cent... (discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28329731 )

>> In-House Armv9?

They meant in house ARMv9 design as in Amazon in house Graviton 2. In reality it is an ARM N2 design. Although likely clocked slightly lower due to TDP usage.

I dont think the ARM China issues has been solved ( And possibly never will be ). So the ARMv9 design is likely coming from ARM UK. Alibaba also operate in SEA and expanding outside of China.

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

#117

Post by jasonvorhe »

robomartin wrote: post #14

Did anyone instantly go back to the memory of the Jack Ma & Elon Musk conference panel WTF? moment and think: No way Jack is running this company, at all.

tbh, a lot of Chinese people sound off speaking English when they're not native speakers. I don't think he's actually stupid but a consequence of the big differences in languages.

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

#118

Post by keonix »

bildung wrote: post #73
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you have the complete verilog source code for the CPU core That's a big "when". The road from an ISA to a core is long, and unless the core is copylefted (this isn't), then you aren't going to get the source code for something someone else manufactured either.

Copyleft won't help you there either if the license issuer is also the producer of the physical chip: Licenses are regulating what third parties can do with the source, they don't restrict the issuer.

They do actually restrict issuer in most cases. Linus can't just strip Linux of other developers parts because they are tightly interconnected. He could relicense 30 year old version of Linux, but it would be useless

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

#119

Post by easygenes »

iorrus wrote: post #91
easygenes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most purposes, electricity is almost a rounding error in datacenter asset management concerns. Server compute is expensive. It is all about performance. ARM is just starting to get competitive in that ballpark. So we will see. All of these ARM server chips are going to be very low on the pecking order for TSMC fab time, so they won't have the edge that Apple had by buying up the first slot on the latest manufactu…

In Ireland the national grid is under strain due to electricity usage from data centres, so much so that there is discussion to deny permission for new ones. I very much doubt that the electricity costs are negligible, it’s also one of the reason data centres are in Ireland as due to the relatively mild climate it reduces hearing/cooling costs. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/data-centres-could-...

Will be interesting to see where datacenters wind up in Europe this next decade. My money is on Norway.

Norway seems poised to build out significantly. They're actively inviting datacenters [1]. They also seem to have lower electric costs for large businesses [2] vs Ireland [3]. FAANG are already populating the Nordics too [4].

  1: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/norway-wants-data-centers-to-locate-there-and-be-more-sustainable-too/
  2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/595859/electricity-industry-price-norway/
  3: https://www.statista.com/statistics/595806/electricity-industry-price-ireland/
  4: https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/the-nordic-datacenter-boom/

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

#120

Post by yokoprime »

rank0 wrote: post #44
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.

Are you comparing ARM to x86 or Intel chips specifically? Intel could design their own ARM chips…it’s an architecture family with a SUPER wide variety of implementations. Everyone seems to be excited about the newer AMD chips which are x86. ARM is nice for low power, low performance workloads like embedded, phones, and laptops.

Isn't pretty much all modern x86 cpu's ARM at their core anyways, or am i missing something? The big deal about Apple scilicone is how its an all-in-one and obviously having things compiled for arm in the first place helps
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