
ARM 64 Bit Server CPU Development Kit - zeit_geist
https://myxgene.apm.com/
======
ChuckMcM
Interesting, I kind of expected AMD to be first out the gate with one.

From : [http://www.zdnet.com/applied-micro-canonical-claim-the-
first...](http://www.zdnet.com/applied-micro-canonical-claim-the-first-
arm-64-bit-server-production-software-deployment-7000029958/)

 _" The X-Gene is an ARMv8 64-bit Server-on-a-Chip package running at up to
2.4GHz. It combines 10/40 Gigabit mixed signal I/O with what AMCC calls an
enterprise-class memory subsystem. Compared to x86 architectures, AMCC claims
that it delivers four-times the processor density while using less than 50
percent of the power and delivering comparable-to-better overall
performance."_

The picture shows multiple cores, but not how many. What struck me though is
that they are pitching "density and less power", presumably they mean you can
put twice as many of these servers in the same power foot print that you
currently put x86 machines and get 8x (4x * 2) the computing power.

In case you are wondering, that is a 'super computer' pitch, it tickles the
pain points of these arrays of super computers, but sadly it does not hit the
'web services' pain points. I'd love it if they said, 1TB of ECC protected
RAM, dual 10G ethernet, and 32 full speed independent 6GB SATA channels on
each server unit. That would help me make a more responsive web
infrastructure.

~~~
reitzensteinm
These comparisons (from the quote) often come up with ARM vs x86, but they're
always comparing apples and oranges. Yes, you can fit an ARM core with 1/4 the
performance in, say, 1/16 the power envelope, but you can do that with x86
cores as well.

The cores we've got are still heavily optimized for single thread performance,
because that's what the market demands. Even embarrassingly parallel domains
like web serving have increased latency, and Amdahl's law is a problem for
most real world programs. The penalty paid for this is high, due to
diminishing returns due to caches, complex architectures, and (roughly
quadratic) power increases due to higher clock speed.

Ignoring the obvious ARM versus Atom low end comparison, Intel is readying
Knight's Landing, their 2015 Xeon Phi product. It's going to include 72 Atom
cores, with 288 threads, and be able to be socketed in standard Xeon
motherboards.

That's 1152 Atom threads on one commodity(ish) server (and the first time I've
ever used a calculator to determine the thread count of a server), and it
looks a hell of a lot like the picture being painted by many ARM vendors. Many
lightweight cores, great power efficiency and peak performance, and most
likely not necessarily suited to latency sensitive tasks.

I don't think it's about ARM versus x86 at all, it's more about a new strategy
for computation. Intel can't transition its traditional x86 processors over to
the new model, so they're starting to make Atom a first class Xeon product
(both with low power standard Atom chips already released, and the Xeon Phi).

The market will shift the other way too - we're going to see ARM processors
from multiple vendors that rival at least AMD's x86 offerings in terms of
performance per core. And power consumption, too.

After that, there'll be products on both ends of the spectrum from both
architectures, and then maybe we can start to move past the false dichotomy of
ARM having efficiency and x86 having performance.

~~~
gonzo
Knights Landing will be built using up to 72 Airmont (Atom) cores with four
threads per core.

Not 1152 threads, 288. 4 sockets -> 1152 threads.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I think you may have misread, my 1152 figure was per server, not socket.

------
rwmj
[http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/red-hat-64-bit-arm-
deve...](http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/red-hat-64-bit-arm-developer-
preview-jon-masterss-keynote-at-linaro-asia/#content)

Jon Masters' keynote at Linaro Asia earlier this year. Jon is heading Red
Hat's efforts on aarch64. In brief he wants:

\- upstream kernels only, single kernel boots on all manufacturers' hardware
(no kernel zoo like on ARM 32 bit)

\- UEFI + ACPI (no device tree nonsense)

------
sn
We made a (failed) play to get our hands on an AMD opteron devkit in order to
talk about running xen on it. I did some research regarding arm64 + xen and
put some notes up here [http://blog.prgmr.com/xenophobia/2014/05/survey-of-
xen-and-a...](http://blog.prgmr.com/xenophobia/2014/05/survey-of-xen-and-arm-
servers.html) in case anyone is interested.

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Gracana
Well that's far too much money for me to spend, but I am excited to see it.

Can anyone comment on whether or not ARMv8 is beneficial in embedded
environments with limited memory? Will we eventually see self-contained ARMv8
microcontrollers?

~~~
justincormack
why do you want a 64 bit microcontroller?

~~~
Gracana
I don't necessarily, I'm just curious if there's anything in the architecture
that would benefit applications where 64 bit addressing isn't a requirement.

~~~
justincormack
Well its a clean new design basically the first classic new RISC design for a
while, but 64 bit instructions are going to take up more space generally so it
is unlikely anyone will make a microcontroller - 32 bit microcontrollers are
still pretty new...

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Nexxxeh
How much is (was) it? When I visit the site, it asks me to register before I
can get any further.

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jevinskie
Does anyone know the price? I don't feel like registering just to see it.

~~~
mrbill
Says here $5K.

[http://www.legitreviews.com/hands-on-with-the-
appliedmicro-x...](http://www.legitreviews.com/hands-on-with-the-appliedmicro-
x-gene-x-c1-server-development-kit_127557)

~~~
justincormack
Yes thats the level I have seen quoted. I think I will wait 9 months and get
one for 10% of the price...

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stefantalpalaru
How many cores?

~~~
augustl
This is all I could find:

> At the SoC level, APM plans to integrate many of these CPU cores onto a
> single package. The range is officially 2 - 128 cores, although I expect
> we'll see something more reasonable than the extremes.

Feom [http://www.anandtech.com/show/5098/applied-micros-xgene-
the-...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/5098/applied-micros-xgene-the-first-
armv8-soc)

