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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday February 07 2018, @06:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the do-they-have-barbeque-flavor? dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Ampere, a new chip company run by former Intel president Renee James, came out of stealth today with a brand-new highly efficient Arm-based server chip targeted at hyperscale data centers.

The company's first chip is a custom core Armv8-A 64-bit server operating at up to 3.3 GHz with 1TB of memory at a power envelope of 125 watts. Although James was not ready to share pricing, she promised that the chip would offer unsurpassed price/performance that would exceed any high performance computing chip out there.

The company has a couple of other products in the works as well, which it will unveil in the future.

Source: TechCrunch


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:18PM (6 children)

    by edIII (791) on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:18PM (#634544)

    I have no interest in price/performance anymore. Whatever it is, it is. I'm extremely interested in price/security/openness. How open is the architecture? Are there any blobs anywhere? Is there a security chip like the Intel ME? If so, do I have access to the source code? Can I compile my own security engine to run on this dedicated security processor?

    Those are the questions I have now. I would build a system today with far less power than the bleeding edge processors out there, but all the security we want and need. I firmly believe now that security can ONLY be obtained with full and absolute transparency. No security is obtained through obscurity of the methods and processes.

    Intel and AMD can both do whatever the hell they want, but the first company to deliver the security we truly need will start getting a lot of orders. Even if they're lower on the performance/feature totem pole.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:40PM (1 child)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:40PM (#634554) Journal

    security can ONLY be obtained with full and absolute transparency.

    This is a truism; I think the love of "management engine" type controls is of control-freak large IT departments in large organizations.

    If I wanted to reboot remote computers, I would install a small singleboard computer that could electronically press the reset button. If I wanted to change their bios remotely, I don't know what I would do beyond hiring someone to trudge over there and poke through the BIOS, admittedly, but a technical solution I'd approve would definitely not involve malware buried deeper even than your average rootkit.

    As usual, my requirements and desires do not sync with those of the market at large. And this time, even simple, proven knowledge like "no security in obscurity" isn't standing in the way.

    I have no interest in price/performance anymore. Whatever it is, it is. I'm extremely interested in price/security/openness.

    I wish I could say this dogmatically, but I have some emotional need for speed. Perhaps I will grow out of it, but I doubt it.

    A RISC V development board is $1000 and a basic RISC V workstation motherboard from Raptor/Talos is $2500 and up. My entire day-to-day workstation--a Ryzen R7-1700X system tricked out with SSDs and 24GB RAM--cost less than either of these boards alone.

    I did source my small-board systems based on the criteria of "no-binary-blobs*", "must-run-unmodified-free-software*," and ended up buying the NanoPC T3 and two Olimex Olinuxino Lime 2 boards. (The Olinuxinos boot and run with no binary blob but the free driver for their GPU is only rudimentary. That was fine with me as I run them headless anyway.)

    If I won the (sweepstakes|lottery|etc) I'd ditch the Ryzen for one of those Talos boards when/if they ever come available.

    --------------------
    * Both criteria that the inexplicably popular "raspberry pi" series of devices fail to meet.

    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:53AM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 08 2018, @12:53AM (#634579) Journal

      RISC V workstation motherboard from Raptor/Talos

      I have no idea why I said that. Raptor/Talos is a Power 9, *not* a "RISC V". Got that stuck in my head thinking about the little development board, I guess.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:26AM (3 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:26AM (#634601) Homepage Journal

    I am afraid I am the bearer of sad tidings:

    What the CPU vendors regard as "a lot of orders" come most commonly from the type of people who hang out on Facebook because they can't figure out email.

    Compared to them, the LUNUX neckbeards that care about security and openness are few and far-between.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:43AM (2 children)

      by edIII (791) on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:43AM (#634611)

      Yes. Which is why we should all revolt.

      I'm serious. You're correct about the market, but incorrect in that the Linux/BSD/PC tech crowd (all of us) now want this openness. In the past it was largely about principles, but security over the last 24 months has taught a lot of people through fire that security is now the 1st item. Our entire house of cards rests on perilous foundations. Virtual is no longer the impenetrable wall people once thought it was, and at every level (Joe Sixpack to Sony exec), people are learning that privacy might be important.

      Some us are willing to do something about it, and pay something for it too. Purism is proving successful at finding a market for it. What will really open up the market is when more of us start refusing to service Windows 10/S, or refuse to service a proprietary board. That's taking it pretty far, but it can start slow just by replacing what the family and friends have. These days with security being what it is, I think you would find an easier time selling it.

      Perhaps we should start by figuring out what reasonable kind of fabrication techniques we could use to bake our own chips. I remember an interesting conversation about what we would need to create, from scratch, in order to build a fully working computer again. Some people were saying that specially designed 3D makers could get us a working processor. Not a very fast one, but a working one.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:15AM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday February 08 2018, @06:15AM (#634720) Homepage Journal

        but a lathe can't make a lathe.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:47PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 08 2018, @01:47PM (#634910) Journal

        I remember an interesting conversation about what we would need to create, from scratch, in order to build a fully working computer again.

        Well over 99% of us--that includes me and probably you--wouldn't be able to make a #2 pencil without large-scale research and collaboration.

        Much less trained silicon.

        we should all revolt.

        Hear, hear. That's a movement I can get behind.