VivienM wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:49:

Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:29:

VivienM wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:13:

[...] And look at what Microsoft has been doing with Intune, Autopilot, etc, and secure boot before that - completely inconsistent with the old PC ways...

All useless stuff if you ask me, I watched the review about arm laptops from LTT, with the so called integrated ai stuff, it's a useless and just marketing feature.

Autopilot is not 'Copilot' the AI thing. Autopilot is a cloud-based management system - your Windows machine talks to the Microsoft cloud, gets the corporate settings/restrictions/etc from the cloud, if you wipe the drive, reinstall the OS, the instant it talks to the cloud, it gets its corporate settings again, etc. Basically, smartphone-style MDM for PC.

I can't see it as an interesting feature in non corporate environment. But it could be because I rarely rely on cloud stuff.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:29:

You are right, personally I stopped using Outlook when I upgraded from XP to Windows 7, then I began to use gmail from the website but I did the same with other email providers. For office things I stick to programs (libreoffice to be precise) despite again google offers some sort of integrated we apps. I think some programs won't be changed for the web based counterpart but there is definitely a push in such direction.

I think you need to look at industry trends more generally. In particular, trends in the business market.

Google has been selling this disgusting web-based collaboration garbage "G Suite" or "Google Apps" or whatever they call it for over a decade. Many, many, many schools use Chromebooks which also play into this ecosystem. That means that for many people for the past decade, a word processor or a spreadsheet is web-based garbage, not a proper native Windows/Mac/etc app like... Word/Excel, or WordPerfect/Quattro Pro.

One thing that made x86 dominant in its glory days of, say, 2000-2015 or so is that everybody used x86. Big cloud providers used x86 servers. Game consoles starting with the PS4 (actually the original Xbox, though they then went PPC) used x86. Workstations abandoned SPARC/MIPS/etc and went to x86. Macs used x86. *NIX systems went to x86, possibly switching to Linux in the process. Minicomputers (except maybe IBM ones) were largely replaced by x86 servers. Home users used x86. Big businesses used x86. Etc. And what that means is that everybody was contributing to the x86 system - all these people were paying Intel/AMD's R&D, all these people were paying for the new fabs to offer x86 on ever smaller transistors, many of those people were paying Microsoft for NT-family OS licences, etc - and all that momentum made NT/x86 and Linux/x86 a juggernaut.

That is no longer the case. The smartphone economy, the rise of foundries like TSMC (which now offer better transistors than what Intel can offer), etc have all been nibbling at x86 from different angles.

If 80% of the uses of x86 switch away from x86, that will create a death spiral. Less economies of scale = higher costs and slower performance improvements. Decaying performance = more people looking at other architectures, which means fewer people on x86, which means fewer economies of scale, etc. Look at what happened with Itanium - it started out very weakly, most uses except HP servers were abandoned, and HP servers on Itanium stagnated for over a decade before the plug was finally pulled on the whole venture - if x86 volumes get low enough, you're not going to see the kind of microarchitecture improvements every year or two you're seeing from AMD/Intel anymore.

(And FYI, your LibreOffice exists for ARM, at least ARM Macs. Not sure if they have an official ARM Windows or Linux build, but... if they already have any ISA-specific code ported for ARM for Mac, that won't be hard for them to make.)

Interestingly, I would probably argue that gaming is likely to be one of the hardest things to move away from x86. Custom/specialized business applications have been written for Chrome for 12-15+ years, so there's only legacy ones for Windows to worry about. Many old-fashioned productivity applications (MS Office, Photoshop, etc) are starting to move to ARM even on Windows. Not so much for gaming. But I don't know to what extent gaming can sustain an ecosystem if most of the rest of x86 world has abandoned the x86 ship.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-11-24, 00:04:

VivienM wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:49:

Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:29:

All useless stuff if you ask me, I watched the review about arm laptops from LTT, with the so called integrated ai stuff, it's a useless and just marketing feature.

Autopilot is not 'Copilot' the AI thing. Autopilot is a cloud-based management system - your Windows machine talks to the Microsoft cloud, gets the corporate settings/restrictions/etc from the cloud, if you wipe the drive, reinstall the OS, the instant it talks to the cloud, it gets its corporate settings again, etc. Basically, smartphone-style MDM for PC.

I can't see it as an interesting feature in non corporate environment. But it could be because I rarely rely on cloud stuff.

I'm not saying it is an "interesting" feature for you. It isn't.

I am saying that it is a sign that the old-fashioned open PC is dying. And that it is replaced by ever-more "secure" systems (like that crazy AMD processor pairing thing) running ever-more-smartphone-like operating systems and moving closer and closer to smartphone-like management systems.

If you think they are going to continue making an 'open' version of Windows while corporate Windows gets more and more locked down, you are being very naive. The priority for Windows NT development has always been big/bigger business. And if anything, home users will get experimented on to lose more control and openness first.

And in fact, look at what they've done with Windows 11 - without some messing around, you cannot use a Windows 11 PC without registering it in the Microsoft cloud and logging in with your Microsoft account. Started with the home version.

Another example: 10-15 years ago, if your Windows PC failed, you could take the hard drive, put it in another system, and recover all your data. Today, the default for Windows 11 is full disk encryption, and you need the recovery key stored in your Microsoft account to access that data as soon as your TPM sneezes. Motherboard replacement is enough to lock you out of your data permanently without that recovery key...

VivienM wrote on 2024-11-24, 00:05:

I think you need to look at industry trends more generally. In particular, trends in the business market. […]
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Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-11-23, 23:29:

You are right, personally I stopped using Outlook when I upgraded from XP to Windows 7, then I began to use gmail from the website but I did the same with other email providers. For office things I stick to programs (libreoffice to be precise) despite again google offers some sort of integrated we apps. I think some programs won't be changed for the web based counterpart but there is definitely a push in such direction.

I think you need to look at industry trends more generally. In particular, trends in the business market.

Google has been selling this disgusting web-based collaboration garbage "G Suite" or "Google Apps" or whatever they call it for over a decade. Many, many, many schools use Chromebooks which also play into this ecosystem. That means that for many people for the past decade, a word processor or a spreadsheet is web-based garbage, not a proper native Windows/Mac/etc app like... Word/Excel, or WordPerfect/Quattro Pro.

One thing that made x86 dominant in its glory days of, say, 2000-2015 or so is that everybody used x86. Big cloud providers used x86 servers. Game consoles starting with the PS4 (actually the original Xbox, though they then went PPC) used x86. Workstations abandoned SPARC/MIPS/etc and went to x86. Macs used x86. *NIX systems went to x86, possibly switching to Linux in the process. Minicomputers (except maybe IBM ones) were largely replaced by x86 servers. Home users used x86. Big businesses used x86. Etc. And what that means is that everybody was contributing to the x86 system - all these people were paying Intel/AMD's R&D, all these people were paying for the new fabs to offer x86 on ever smaller transistors, many of those people were paying Microsoft for NT-family OS licences, etc - and all that momentum made NT/x86 and Linux/x86 a juggernaut.

That is no longer the case. The smartphone economy, the rise of foundries like TSMC (which now offer better transistors than what Intel can offer), etc have all been nibbling at x86 from different angles.

If 80% of the uses of x86 switch away from x86, that will create a death spiral. Less economies of scale = higher costs and slower performance improvements. Decaying performance = more people looking at other architectures, which means fewer people on x86, which means fewer economies of scale, etc. Look at what happened with Itanium - it started out very weakly, most uses except HP servers were abandoned, and HP servers on Itanium stagnated for over a decade before the plug was finally pulled on the whole venture - if x86 volumes get low enough, you're not going to see the kind of microarchitecture improvements every year or two you're seeing from AMD/Intel anymore.

(And FYI, your LibreOffice exists for ARM, at least ARM Macs. Not sure if they have an official ARM Windows or Linux build, but... if they already have any ISA-specific code ported for ARM for Mac, that won't be hard for them to make.)

Interestingly, I would probably argue that gaming is likely to be one of the hardest things to move away from x86. Custom/specialized business applications have been written for Chrome for 12-15+ years, so there's only legacy ones for Windows to worry about. Many old-fashioned productivity applications (MS Office, Photoshop, etc) are starting to move to ARM even on Windows. Not so much for gaming. But I don't know to what extent gaming can sustain an ecosystem if most of the rest of x86 world has abandoned the x86 ship.

I think there is a misunderstanding. I'm not against the arm architecture, I watch it with curiosity, maybe a bit of worrying for the compatibility, but that's it, I always have been curious of different technologies, I'm a huge fan of the old Rendition Verite video cards (pratically risc cpus as video chipsets). I have a 15 years old laptop that I still use nowadays which the battery never lasted more than a hour, if I get one of those laptops which allow me to be loaded every 2-3 days (I rarely use a laptop for gaming, maybe some retrogaming), it would be great for the use I do of the laptop. The console example is quite a non sequitur. As you said the consoles (from ps4 generation) began to be a x86 systems, it's what made me loose any interest on them. That actually shows more interest (mainly economic in my opinion since develope games for console and pc sharing the same architecture is a huge saving cost). Are you aware if the next consoles will use another architecture?

VivienM wrote on 2024-11-24, 00:13:

I'm not saying it is an "interesting" feature for you. It isn't. […]
Show full quote

I'm not saying it is an "interesting" feature for you. It isn't.

I am saying that it is a sign that the old-fashioned open PC is dying. And that it is replaced by ever-more "secure" systems (like that crazy AMD processor pairing thing) running ever-more-smartphone-like operating systems and moving closer and closer to smartphone-like management systems.

If you think they are going to continue making an 'open' version of Windows while corporate Windows gets more and more locked down, you are being very naive. The priority for Windows NT development has always been big/bigger business. And if anything, home users will get experimented on to lose more control and openness first.

And in fact, look at what they've done with Windows 11 - without some messing around, you cannot use a Windows 11 PC without registering it in the Microsoft cloud and logging in with your Microsoft account. Started with the home version.

Another example: 10-15 years ago, if your Windows PC failed, you could take the hard drive, put it in another system, and recover all your data. Today, the default for Windows 11 is full disk encryption, and you need the recovery key stored in your Microsoft account to access that data as soon as your TPM sneezes. Motherboard replacement is enough to lock you out of your data permanently without that recovery key...

I am definitely naive, so naive that I was able to avoid using Windows 11 (for now, I changed hard drive in march and decided to install windows 10 ltsc), so I know nothing about it, but what you said it was clear with windows 10 already, before you were able to choose when and what updates to install, this feature has been taken off. That's what I dislike from those kind of development as I didn't like when the cell phones began to use integrated and not changeable batteries, in the end I had to change phone so I will surely bend to new hardware and software limitations but I will try to resist as much as I can.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-11-24, 00:33:

I think there is a misunderstanding. I'm not against the arm architecture, I watch it with curiosity, maybe a bit of worrying for the compatibility, but that's it, I always have been curious of different technologies, I'm a huge fan of the old Rendition Verite video cards (pratically risc cpus as video chipsets). I have a 15 years old laptop that I still use nowadays which the battery never lasted more than a hour, if I get one of those laptops which allow me to be loaded every 2-3 days (I rarely use a laptop for gaming, maybe some retrogaming), it would be great for the use I do of the laptop. The console example is quite a non sequitur. As you said the consoles (from ps4 generation) began to be a x86 systems, it's what made me loose any interest on them. That actually shows more interest (mainly economic in my opinion since develope games for console and pc sharing the same architecture is a huge saving cost). Are you aware if the next consoles will use another architecture?

I don't think the cost saving from console/PCs sharing the same architecture is primarily on the game development side (although I am sure the game vendors do appreciate that); I think it's more on the processor/GPU development side. AMD can deliver a lightly-modified version of existing designs to Sony/Microsoft at a very, very competitive price compared to something more bespoke.

Although I did think of another advantage - you can presumably use an x86 PC (or some custom thing based off x86 PC parts) to develop and debug x86 PS games in the absence of real PS hardware. For the PPC PS3/Xbox 360, I believe game developers did their original development work on PPC G5 Apple machines. Makes it easier for more third party games to be available early in the new console's lifecycle.

I have not heard any rumours about the next-generation consoles. My guess is that they will stick to x86 for another round, because unless Sony/Microsoft want to hire their own CPU/GPU design team and come up with a bespoke design for TSMC to make, it is not clear to me who could deliver a single CPU+GPU solution similar to what AMD has been delivering since the PS4. Maybe Qualcomm though I don't know how far behind their GPUs are. And I think that overall, Sony has benefited from the fact that the PS4/PS5 are architecturally similar (I can't comment on Xbox, I've always been on the Sony side), so unless some other architecture can emulate PS5 titles at near-native-PS5 speeds when the PS6 comes out, I think sticking to x86 makes sense. x86 also makes it much cheaper to do a mid-cycle upgrade like the PS4/PS5 Pro.

Raspberry Pi user since ever here and they are good example of modern very common ARM desktop PC even if they doesn't give much freedom like a mini-itx, micro-atx x64 computer but still perfectly usable as sort of "Celeron" modern configs.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-11-22, 14:47:

I suspect the industry heavy weights dont want DIY PC users, they want a set standard they can feed to Lusers year over year wit […]
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RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2024-11-22, 13:17:

The issues with ARM PCs are - based on what's currently being served up in the market and to devs - hardware designs that are "just good enough" for basic computing uses and not good enough for enthusiasts and power users, a focus on "everything integrated" (no expandability or performance increases potential), and pricing that is not competitive with x86. It's certainly possible to make x86-style system boards with ARM, but the philosophy in the industry is to just repurpose phone/tablet designs and put them in mini-PC type housing.

I suspect the industry heavy weights dont want DIY PC users, they want a set standard they can feed to Lusers year over year with little to no innovation, this would lower production costs and support requirements. Cheap, nasty ARM garbage hardware that cant be repaired easily is cheap to produce and is considered throwaway, that they can force obsolescence on by simply stopping updates much like they do with current ARM garbage. Worse they can pull an Apple and you only get what they want you to have unless you are willing to pay 600 USD for a 1Tb SSD because its all proprietary and platform locked.

This is why ARM junk isn't exciting for the enthusiasts or power users . .even Linux guys dont want ARM garbage but they will force it on us none the less because this is what the industry wants. Both AMD and nVidia have seen this with both investing heavily into ARM tech . .especially nVidia who I suspect dont want end users to own top end GPU hardware. They want you to rent it from them via the cloud. Prices for 5000 series GPUs look to be astronomical significantly higher than the 4000 cards, they price the end users out of the market and then let you rent it from them instead via Geforce Now or other cloud services.

The truly scary part is they can control this ARM hardware remotely much like they do with mobile devices currently .. even when turned off its still listening and reporting location data because you the end user have zero control over it. Also . .all your data ends up in the cloud too, so they can farm it to make bank and push personalised ADDs to you. (This is being pushed hard right now by the likes of Microsoft and Apple, your data is useless to them on your personal PC)

Yes I dislike ARM hardware in its current form .. not because its inherently bad but because of what the industry truly wants to push to end users, ARM is easily controlled and X86-64 is not.

Call me crazy and claim none of this is happening .. but I'm old enough to have seen the free market PC industry be birthed and I'm going to be around to see it slowly die, because the Industry doesn't want the free market. They want locked down hardware eco systems they control with software they can use to make even more money from you the end user.

At least RiscV is slowly and quietly becoming a thing. After the recent disputes between Qualcomm and ARM, hopefully at least some companies will be more willing to consider a less controlled architecture.

Hmm... reading the thread I think there's two things that are occasionally being conflated, namely the x86-instructions and the "IBM PC"-compatible open architecture.

I don't think there is anything that is inherent to ARM that is in itself hostile to the PC as we knew it, it's just that the general trend is for consumers to want simple integrated systems, so manufacturers are looking at that as the biggest potential business. IMO it's a bit of a miracle that these do-it-yourself customizable type desktop PCs became as widespread as they did, and from the point of view of enthusiasts like us (and we have to admit we are enthusiasts) it looks like a disaster with how everything is getting locked down and becoming proprietary... but that was always going to happen. If you looked at the average household and how much they suffered in our "golden era" with their computing - from their point of view everything in the smartphone era is way better. You buy something, it "just works" for about 5~6 years, then you get the next thing.

From my vantage point on the other hand, if someone sold motherboards, video cards, etc. but there was a possibility to socket an ARM processor in that system, choose the software freely etc. (most Linux is already fine with this) - I would jump at that chance. The performance of something like Apple's M-series CPUs paired with some heavy duty video cards would be really exciting to me.

...but like someone already wrote earlier, the writing was on the wall by the early 2000's. There's hardly any real choice left for PC builders even if they go with x86 today. So I think the future ARM desktops are going to look more like Apple's minis or iMacs, and less like the PCs we used to know - even though I would much love to see the latter.

leonardo wrote on 2024-11-24, 13:28:

Hmm... reading the thread I think there's two things that are occasionally being conflated, namely the x86-instructions and the "IBM PC"-compatible open architecture.

Yes, though... what out there is x86 but not "IBM PC-compatible"? The only things I can think of are the gaming consoles. Even, say, the Intel Macs were IBM PC-compatible. And maybe there are some industrial/embedded x86 chips that are not IBM PC compatible...

leonardo wrote on 2024-11-24, 13:28:

I don't think there is anything that is inherent to ARM that is in itself hostile to the PC as we knew it, it's just that the general trend is for consumers to want simple integrated systems, so manufacturers are looking at that as the biggest potential business. IMO it's a bit of a miracle that these do-it-yourself customizable type desktop PCs became as widespread as they did, and from the point of view of enthusiasts like us (and we have to admit we are enthusiasts) it looks like a disaster with how everything is getting locked down and becoming proprietary... but that was always going to happen. If you looked at the average household and how much they suffered in our "golden era" with their computing - from their point of view everything in the smartphone era is way better. You buy something, it "just works" for about 5~6 years, then you get the next thing.

From my vantage point on the other hand, if someone sold motherboards, video cards, etc. but there was a possibility to socket an ARM processor in that system, choose the software freely etc. (most Linux is already fine with this) - I would jump at that chance. The performance of something like Apple's M-series CPUs paired with some heavy duty video cards would be really exciting to me.

...but like someone already wrote earlier, the writing was on the wall by the early 2000's. There's hardly any real choice left for PC builders even if they go with x86 today. So I think the future ARM desktops are going to look more like Apple's minis or iMacs, and less like the PCs we used to know - even though I would much love to see the latter.

I would note one thing - creating a modular platform is... much harder... than creating a single product. In part because you need to get others to produce parts that are compatible with your platform.

The IBM PC compatible open platform is almost an... accident. IBM created a modular architecture, then everybody started copying it, then people started replacing one component/subsystem here and there while keeping everything else the same. After over two decades of that, then basically every component other than the legacy BIOS had been substantially overhauled... yet the platform had enough momentum to keep suppliers generating parts, even with some non-backwards compatible transitions like AGP -> PCI Express where you needed both PCI Express motherboards and PCI Express GPUs on the market at the same time.

The other thing that the IBM PC compatible platform gave you is a basic level of hardware compatibility. Instead of having to compile each OS for each computer, there's enough commonality that you can install an OS like Windows and then add modularized drivers.

And it's worth noting - not all attempts at platform change succeeded. Look at BTX. If you started making BTX motherboards in anticipation of someone else making BTX cases, oops...

If you can fit everything you need on a single SoC, and it appears that transistors have been miniaturized enough that you've been able to do that for the past decade, I think it's just... easier... to design everything yourself rather than try to create a modular platform whose appeal is... unclear. That being said, some ARM things are more modular than others, e.g. I'm pretty sure Ampere's have modular RAM, while Apple's do not. But RAM is something where there are established architecture-agnostic standards; it's not like Ampere requires different RAM from JEDEC standards.

I would finally add one other point - there was a real appeal to modularity in the 1990s particularly because... new stuff kept being introduced. Computers were expensive, you couldn't afford to throw them out every year or two, and yet you needed your computer to be able to interact with the new thing. Good example of that - those multimedia kits with a sound card and a CD-ROM drive in the early 1990s. Or Ethernet cards in the late 1990s - no one had Ethernet on home machines until suddenly, 'oh, you are going to connect to cable/DSL via Ethernet', so it's a good thing almost all computers had ISA or PCI or PCMCIA slots for an Ethernet card. Or CD/DVD burners. Etc. And because things had very little margin - you could easily fill up the hard drive on your new computer 6-18 months after buying it, and you couldn't have gotten/afforded a bigger hard drive when you got the system. You needed modularity in order to try and salvage a reasonable return on investment on an expensive system in a world where many computers were half-obsolete before you even took them home.

None of that is true anymore - you can buy a $500-600CAD desktop that will last the ordinary person until Microsoft pulls another Windows 11 and artificially restricts it from upgrading to Windows 13 or 14. And no one is designing cool add-ons for desktop PCs so it's not like some new internal storage or networking or multimedia device will come out next year.

To me, "IBM PC-compatible" implies what it says, being compatible to an IBM 5150.
But without Real-Mode/8086 compatible processor, PC BIOS support and compatibilty to basic PC/XT architecture this requirement isn't met.

Otherwise if they had shipped with OEM DOSes, they used to refered to be "MS-DOS compatibles", such as DEC Rainbow or Sanyo SMB-555.

Today's PCs are "WinTel PCs" more than ever. They're built for a specific version of Windows, even.
This started with Windows 7, I think, when specific processors had been made intentionally compatible/incompatible with Windows 7 (Skylake?).

In the 90s, at least, we had open RISC architectures with various OSes to boot from.
These RISC PCs had been promising, despite not being "IBM PC-compatible".
They were real PCs, sometimes running an unrestricted firmware comparable to Open Firmware, though

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-24, 16:21:

Today's PCs are "WinTel PCs" more than ever. They're built for a specific version of Windows, even.
This started with Windows 7, I think, when specific processors had been made intentionally compatible/incompatible with Windows 7 (Skylake?).

Kaby Lake - Skylake was the last generation with proper Windows 7 support. Microsoft/Intel were getting tired of the big OEM selling Windows 7 downgrade systems and didn't want them to continue doing so in 2017...

(Of course, Lenovo, at least, just kept selling Skylake systems for another year... you could get a T470 with a 6xxx processor if you wanted 7 or a 7xxx processor for 10)

As far as I could find, the only socketed ARM (Micro-)ATX motherboard currently on the market with PCIe slots and standard RAM slots seems to be the Asrock ALTRAD8UD-1L2T. This motherboard takes Ampere Altra CPUs in an LGA 4926 socket, which third-party CPU cooler manufacturers such as Noctua sell coolers for. So this could form the basis of a traditional modular home-built desktop PC, in the same vein as how we've been building and upgrading our desktop PCs for decades.

Curiously, this motherboard is consistently marketed as a "server" solution. I don't see it ever being formally offered as a workstation solution, even though it can most definitely form the basis of a workstation, with support for discrete AMD and NVIDIA GPUs even. (Jeff Geerling has some YouTube videos about such as setup.)

My guess is that the reason why Ampere is steering clear of offering their CPUs for "workstation" or "desktop" use is probably because the ARM license that they have only applies to server hardware. Nuvia had a server license from ARM too, and when Qualcomm acquired Nuvia and tried to use Nuvia's IP to develop mobile and desktop CPUs, ARM revoked their license. Obviously, Ampere doesn't want to get into a similar legal battle with ARM.

But not marketing it for desktop use won't legally prevent people from actually using it as such.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find this motherboard and CPU in Europe anywhere for a reasonable price, new or used. 🤷🏾‍♂️

The only somewhat affordable offers for a motherboard+cpu bundle (about $1500) are all from sellers in the US. That's unfortunate, since shipping fees and import duties would increase the costs of it substantially for buyers in Europe.

I'm seriously considering switching to a Linux-based ARM system as my daily desktop driver. That would likely be either an older M2-based Mac Mini that is supported by Asahi Linux, or an Ampere Altra CPU and motherboard, if I can finally find one in Europe for a reasonable price.

But on the other hand, given how hard ARM Holdings is making things for everyone w.r.t. licensing, maybe I should just hold out on the (boring) x86 platform a bit longer, until more mature RISC-V platforms come on the market. It's still not as mature as ARM yet, but already it's showing to be more open, what with a RISC-V motherboard for Framework Laptops already becoming available, as well as desktop solutions from SiFive and others that allow the use of discrete graphics cards.

One compelling reason to pick ARM over RISC-V would be the fact that apparently the ARM instruction set architecture has more features that allows x86 to be emulated more efficiently and with higher performance, which is nice for running games.

On the other hand, the Box64 developers (and perhaps also the FEX developers?) appear to be figuring out clever workarounds for these limitations on RISC-V, and leaving out instructions that would only be beneficial for emulating other (legacy) architectures might keep the architecture cleaner and more future-proof overall.

The Box64 developers go into this in further detail in a number of interesting blog posts:

• https://box86.org/2024/08/box64-and-risc-v-in-2024/
• https://box86.org/2024/10/optimizing-the-risc-v-backend/
• https://box86.org/2024/12/new-version-of-box6 … d-box86-v0-3-8/

Currently, I'm leaning towards finding a pre-owned M2 Mac Mini (that's supported by Asahi Linux) and using that as my daily driver, at least until RISC-V has gotten more mature, both as an architecture and as an ecosystem. But I'm definitely rooting for RISC-V!

If anybody knows of an alternative decent desktop Linux ARM platform that's performant and affordable, please share it!

And any leads on a good and affordable European seller of Ampere Altra CPUs and motherboards would be welcome too.

Thanks. 🙏🏽

Wow I didn't know, very interesting post, thank you.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2024-12-08, 18:38:

Wow I didn't know, very interesting post, thank you.

You're welcome. Glad my research on this so far is useful to someone else. 😅

Crazy idea: would there be enough people willing to join a group buy for such an Asrock board with an ARM Altra CPU? Directly from ASrock Rack in Taiwan?

The Altra is actually Ampere's last-gen CPU. But AmpereOne-based solutions will likely be even more expensive. So that might help in getting a good price if they are clearing out their inventory. 🙂

Ampere also sells the Ampere Altra Developer Platform. That's the system that Jeff Geerling demonstrated in one of his videos, testing it with discrete graphics cards.

But that's a a pre-built system in a tower, including RAM. In its cheapest configuration, it costs $2450. That's steep, but for that price it does come with 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 ECC RAM, 128GB NVMe drive and 750W PSU.

On the other hand, shipping costs from Taiwan will likely be considerably higher for a complete tower, as opposed to just the motherboard and CPU, which is the only thing that we're really interested in, since we probably want to pick our own case, source our own RAM modules, etc. Also, ordering something like that from outside the EU will always incur a hefty import tax on top of the retail price.

This seems to be Ampere's only product that is intended for individual customers, and it clearly shows the price on the distributor's website.

I guess by offering it as a developer platform, they can sell it in a desktop configuration without running the risk of getting their ARM server license revoked.

One thing to keep in mind: the Altra platform is already 4 years old, and eventually a newer version of the developer platform based on the newer AmpereOne CPU might become available.

Could that be the reason why this system is currently "on sale"?

Personally, I would still prefer to find a good deal on the motherboard and the CPU, and shop for the other components elsewhere.

Oh, but what have we here? They also sell a cheaper Ampere Altra Dev Kit.

The cheapest variant of this kit (32-core) is currently "on sale" for $1650. It also has regular PCIe and DDR4 RAM slots. However, this board comes in a COM-HPC form factor, which is apparently a standard in the embedded systems industry. It does seem to come with some kind of carrier board, and if I understand this Tom's Hardware article correctly, that carrier allows it to be installed in an E-ATX case.

Due to the COM-HPC form factor, it comes with a special cooler for it, and it doesn't look like a larger third party LGA 4926 cooler like the one from Noctua will fit on it, though. (But maybe I'm mistaken?)

I guess it could still be a cheaper option. Although there is still the risk of it being superseded by a newer AmpereOne-based kit soon, since the Altra Dev Kit was introduced in April 2023.

I'd still prefer a regular (Micro-)ATX board like the one from ASRock, though.

So I'd still be open to a group buy, if enough others are.

Any more people interested in a motherboard+cpu group buy? I'm thinking about the cheapest variant, so just the board with a 32-core CPU.

With enough enthusiasm, I'll fire off an email to ASRock to ask for a quote, a minimum order amount, etc.

On the other hand, I wonder how to handle payments with such an expensive group buy like this one. 😬

You're too late, you missed it...

https://www.retro-kit.co.uk/page.cfm/content/Acorn-A5000/