The fact that Canonical is distributing an ARM version of its latest ubuntu distro is great IMO. It give me hope for projects like the touchbook (https://www.alwaysinnovating.com).
Chris... On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Dante Lanznaster <dant...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 12:29 PM, Randall Whitman <909li...@whizman.com> > wrote: > > [snip] > >> For the entire workstation, or the CPU only? > > Entire case, measured through the power cable. Kill-a-watt > units are kinda handy. > >> Exactly - and for doing other work while a debugger is grinding away. >> So yes, I was specifically comparing *4* cores ARM vs *2* cores x86, >> for exactly these reasons (together with watt-draw comparison). >> For my usage scenario, I was thinking i'd getting substantial benefit >> from the third cpu core. > > I don't know about your usage scenario, but most schedulers tend > to load balance the workload across all cores, unless it is possible > to define the core affinity in the program (rarely seen, IMO). Also, the > difference in raw power between processors should be taken into > consideration, especially if the software is optimized for SSE4 and the > likes. Once the Cortex becomes readily available I suppose we'll see > benchmarks popping up on the internet. > >> That's the other thing i'd *really* like to know :) and the other potential >> fly in the ointment for this idea... First I'd have to find a supplier >> willing and able to produce and sell such a rig (or at least a motherboard >> that can take 4-core ARM Cortex A9 and 4G RAM), and then I can see what >> the price is. > > I imagine there will be custom boards for this, as today you can find > 1U servers based on Atom processors, or very small boards targeted > to the firewall market, also Atom-based. Quad core setups would depend > on the Cortex supporting dual-socket scenarios though, and although > this processor seems to be pretty good in terms of expandability, dual > socket boards would be a bit too much, I think. Price would be another > story though, since this is sort of commodity hardware, and I'd expect > it to be a bit pricier than a regular C2D set, although you would easily > offset the cost in power savings. > > -- > Dante > _______________________________________________ > LinuxUsers mailing list > LinuxUsers@socallinux.org > http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers > -- "As we open our newspapers or watch our television screens, we seem to be continually assaulted by the fruits of Mankind's stupidity." -Roger Penrose _______________________________________________ LinuxUsers mailing list LinuxUsers@socallinux.org http://socallinux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linuxusers
