
Raptor Blackbird system or board this year at a mainboard cost of $875? - classichasclass
https://www.strawpoll.me/16840668
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mindcrime
That's progress, I suppose. But that still feels awful steep to buy as an
individual / hobbyist. And I still believe that POWER needs to reach a point
where the systems are accessible to individual hobbyist / experimenters in
order to really take off.

If I were _already_ convinced that I wanted to adopt POWER, then as a company,
I could possibly justify buying boards at that price. But as somebody who just
wants a POWER system to fuck around with and evaluate, that's a tough pill to
swallow.

~~~
classichasclass
How are they supposed to reduce the price further? They don't have the
economies of scale of more widespread CPUs and designs, and I think it's
unrealistic to expect a small company to issue a loss leader to jumpstart the
market. For an exotic architecture I think this price is a steal.

~~~
mindcrime
You're right, but that doesn't really contradict anything I said. It may be a
steal in absolute terms, but most hobbyists still can't afford it. How they
get the price down further is a question I don't have an answer for.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong and the hobbyist / individual tinkerer market
doesn't actually matter. And maybe a bunch of startups and other companies
looking for a competitive edge will bet on POWER and start buying these right
away. I _hope_ that happens, as that could serve to eventually get them to the
"economy of scale" level where the price can come down more.

