Huawei Preps Desktop PC Motherboards Featuring Up To 8 Core Kunpeng 920 ARM v8 CPUs
Huawei is seemingly dipping its fingers into another market, this being the desktop PC market with the recent release of its first consumer PC motherboard. This motherboard houses the Kunpeng 920 ARM v8 Processor. This processor is usually being reserved for server boards but Huawei seems to think with the expandability that these processors offer, their Kunpeng lineup will be able to compete with Intel and AMD in the desktop PC segment.
The supported processors for this motherboard, the Kunpeng 920 ARM v8, offer different core counts, starting with 4 core and 8 core models for the desktop PC segment and scaling all the way up to 64 cores with server motherboards that are also expected to launch later on. The CPU itself is based on a 7nm process node and features support for PCIe 4.0 and DDR4 memory with speeds of up to 2400 MHz.
Related: ARM Aims to Match Intel 15-Watt Laptop CPU Performance
Windows on ARM Gains Native 64-Bit Application Support
Related Stories
Arm Unveils Client CPU Performance Roadmap Through 2020 - Taking Intel Head On
Today's roadmap now publicly discloses the codenames of the next two generations of CPU cores following the A76 – Deimos and Hercules. Both future cores are based on the new A76 micro-architecture and will introduce respective evolutionary refinements and incremental updates for the Austin cores.
The A76 being a 2018 product – and we should be hearing more on the first commercial devices on 7nm towards the end of the year and coming months, Deimos is its 2019 successor aiming at more wide-spread 7nm adoption. Hercules is said to be the next iteration of the microarchitecture for 2020 products and the first 5nm implementations. This is as far as Arm is willing to project in the future for today's disclosure, as the Sophia team is working on the next big microarchitecture push, which I suspect will be the successor to Hercules in 2021.
Part of today's announcement is Arm's reiteration of the performance and power goals of the A76 against competing platforms from Intel. The measurement metric today was the performance of a SPECint2006 Speed run under Linux while complied under GCC7. The power metrics represent the whole SoC "TDP", meaning CPU, interconnect and memory controllers – essentially the active platform power much in a similar way we've been representing smartphone mobile power in recent mobile deep-dive articles.
Here a Cortex A76 based system running at up to 3GHz is said to match the single-thread performance of an Intel Core i5-7300U running at its maximum 3.5GHz turbo operating speed, all while doing it within a TDP of less than 5W, versus "15W" for the Intel system. I'm not too happy with the power presentation done here by Arm as we kind of have an apples-and-oranges comparison; the Arm estimates here are meant to represent actual power consumption under the single-threaded SPEC workload while the Intel figures are the official TDP figures of the SKU – which obviously don't directly apply to this scenario.
Also at TechCrunch.
See also: Arm Maps Out Attack on Intel Core i5
ARM's First Client PC Roadmap Makes Bold Claims, Doesn't Back Them Up
ARM says its next processors will outperform Intel laptop chips
Related: ARM Based Laptop DIY Kit Ready to Hit the Shops
First ARM Snapdragon-Based Windows 10 S Systems Announced
Laptop and Phone Convergence at CES
Snapdragon 1000 ARM SoC Could Compete With Low-Power Intel Chips in Laptops
Microsoft opens the door to better Windows on ARM apps
Microsoft is removing one of the big limitations of Windows on ARM this week by allowing developers to create 64-bit ARM (ARM64) apps. Developers will be able to recompile existing win32 or Universal Windows Apps to run natively on Windows 10 on ARM hardware. That means 64-bit app performance should get a lot better, as long as developers take the time to recompile.
Microsoft is now relying on developers to use its tools to improve its Windows on ARM efforts. That's a situation the software giant has found itself in before, relying on developers to create Universal Windows Apps for Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows Phone apps for a variety of new touch-based hardware. It's hard to say whether 64-bit app support will really help move Windows on ARM into the mainstream, but it's certainly laying the ground work for a bigger push by Microsoft.
Also at TechRadar.
Related: Microsoft Document Details Windows 10 on ARM Limitations
VLC Becomes One of First ARM64 Windows Apps
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:19AM (6 children)
Now the question is, do I trust China more than I trust the US. With the follow-up of if they're both completely untrustworthy, which would I rather have actually spying on me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:30AM (1 child)
China. Since you are presumably not a Muslim they've got nothing against you and probably do not care what porn you watch. Whereas the US government is keenly interested in your every move (including unlicensed fish-catching).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @02:01AM
No worries, I'm licensed. The work to cover the cost of a license is less bothersome than the hassle of dodging game wardens. Plus the money's legally required to go to wildlife and lake management, of which I heartily approve.
You're probably right about China though. Unless they particularly care about knowing (only knowing, not being able to alter) how much of a specific additive a chicken or cattle feed mill is using, they're not interested in anything I've been working on recently. And I'm not really very blackmail-able either as I do my best to never do anything I'm going to be ashamed to have publicly known.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 07 2019, @02:12AM (2 children)
If you don't trust your hardware, don't connect it to SpyNet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:01AM
I'd rather trust the Russkies than the Chinks. But the Russkies are pozzed with Bolsheviks, and with the Chinks the option is slighty less great. Both arming the Bolsheviks to destroy the American people. I guess we'll have to wait and see, shall we?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:20AM
I don't, I connect it to PornHub like everybody else.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday December 07 2019, @05:59PM
As a Canadian, I'm a lot more likely to accidentally come under the American governments jurisdiction, so American spying is more worrying. There was a recent domestic flight that got diverted to Seattle, all kinds of problems ensued, passengers without good enough ID, passengers who were banned from traveling to the States (often due to political reasons) and passengers with substances that are illegal in America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:03AM (6 children)
A no IME/PSP laptop with reasonable performance, in a nice package (mate book looks like a Dell XPS-13; same tiny screen bezels).
Of course, this is assuming that the lower core count version is far below the 100W TDP of their largest. Maybe, even without making them on a low power optimized process, the power consumption could be made reasonable (lower clocks, lower voltage, etc.).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:37AM
I seem to remember hearing that extremely high performance per watt is one of the big reasons ARM chips are even being considered for server applications.
If that's indeed the case, then I would think that they would already be considerably more heavily optimized than any x86 processor, and the only question is how powerful a processor are you installing?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:55AM
Core: up to 64
Max Power: 180W
That's 2.8125 Watts per core. 11.25 Watt quad-core, 22.5 Watt 8-core. Maybe round those up to 15W and 25W.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:18AM (3 children)
TrustZone is probably not quite as bad as IME or PSP but I still don't want anything even resembling it on my chip, thanks.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by coolgopher on Saturday December 07 2019, @07:51AM
There's actually a massive difference. For starters you can grab the source yourself [github.com], and if your main OS does not rely on any trusted services, you can replace the entire thing with a shim. Last I poked around with it Linux needed (some of) the trusted services, so I had to build the trusted firmware from source and get it loaded in the right place for things to work. Maybe there are knobs to tweak to remove those dependencies. If anyone knows, please provide details :)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday December 07 2019, @05:25PM (1 child)
The question about the Trust Zone is, of course, who is in charge of it -- you, the chip manufacturer, or some intermediate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @10:24AM
This is why Raspberry Pi's didn't support Trustzone (The Pi4 also had some hardware issues in the on-chip implementation of secure paths) and why the latest use UEFI, with presumably stage0 bootloaders tied to microsoft's keys.
This Huawei part could go either way, but since the Chinese don't want their own citizens to have free reign over the security components, it is likely this will go the same way as Huawei cellphones and be locked down tight (hint: Huawei used to be THE MOST UNLOCKED cellphones, even many carrier prepay models!) due to the Chinese government's influence. Sadly whoever used to be open to device freedom at Huawei is likely long gone, disappeared for reasons the US Government would also back, because insecurity through obscurity is good for all state actors, because they all get off on surveilling their citizens.