Bought myself an Ampere Altra system
32 comments
·June 30, 2025fschutze
I realize the Ampere Altra Q features the Armv8.2-a ISA. Does anybody know if there are chips with Armv8.6-a (or above) or even SVE that one can buy? I did some research but couldn't find any.
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nubinetwork
Radxa orion o6 claims to be the first arm v9 system available.
maz1b
I've always wondered why there isn't a bigger market / offering for dedicated servers with Ampere at their heart (apart from Hetzner)
If anyone knows of any, let me know!
moffkalast
They're slow and the arch is less compatible? Arm cores in web hosting are typically known as the shit-tier.
I think the main use case for these is some sort of Android build farm, as a CI/CD pipeline with testing of different OS versions and general app building, since they don't have to emulate arm.
ozgrakkurt
A lot of software is built and optimized for x86 and EPYC processors are really good so it is hard to get into arm, don’t think that many companies use it.
adev_
> A lot of software is built and optimized for x86 and EPYC processors are really good so it is hard to get into arm, don’t think that many companies use it.
That is just not true.
Nowadays, most OSS software and most server side software will run without any hinch on armv8.
A tremendous amount of work has been done to speed up common software on armv8, partially due to popularity of mobile as a platform but also and to the emergence of ARM servers (Graviton / Neoverses) in the major Cloud providers infrastructure.
p_l
However, it's hard to get into ARM other than using cloud offerings.
Because those cloud offerings have handled for you the problematic case of ARM generally operating as "closed platform" even when everything is open source.
On a PC server, usually you only hit any issues if you want to play with something more exotic on either software or hardware. Bog-standard linux setup is trivial to integrate.
On ARM, even though finally there's UEFI available, I recall that even few years ago there were issues with things like interrupt controller support - and that kind of reputation persists and definitely makes it harder to percolate on-prem ARM.
It also does not help that you need to go for pretty pricy systems to avoid vendor lock-in at firmware compatibility level - or had to, until quite recently.
Someone
If you use AWS, lots of software can easily be run on Graviton, and lots of companies do that.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/08/amazon_arm_servers/:
“Bernstein's report estimates that Graviton represented about 20 percent of AWS CPU instances by mid-2022“
And that’s three years ago. Graviton instances are cheaper than (more or less) equivalent x86 ones on AWS, so I think it’s a safe bet that number has gone up since.
baq
yeah if you're running a node backend, the changes are cosmetic at best (unless you're running chrome to generate pdfs or whatever). easiest 20% saved ever. if I were Intel or AMD I would be very afraid of this... years ago.
zxexz
I don’t think a lot of companies realize they are using it. At three companies now, I’ve witnessed core microservices migrate to ARM seamlessly, due to engineering being direct pressure to “reduce cloud spend”. The terrifying (and amazing) bit is that moving to ARM was enough to get finance off engineering’s back in all cases.
burnt-resistor
1341 PLN / 371 USD isn't "cheap" for 25% more cores. That's almost double the price.
Q64-22 on eBay (US) for $150-200 USD / 542-723 PLN.
Aissen
25% more cores and 36% more clock. It amounts to paying 85% more for 70% more perf. Not too bad.
szszrk
He clearly refers to that and states they did not respond.
Also, CPU was hardly the biggest cost here.
fschutze
I never bought used computer parts. Are these parts generally reliable for ~2 years when bought used?
pabs3
My current computer is from more than 10 years ago, and I found it in a dumpster. Works fine.
cornichon622
Built a gaming desktop for a friend almost 2 years ago; used GPU and CPU (maybe a few others things too), everything's going great. It helps that our local Cragslist offers efficient buyer protection.
Server-side, I also bought used Xeons for an old box and recertified 10TB Exos. No issues there neither.
The HDDs are a bit of a gamble, but for anything else I can only encourage you to buy used!
throwaway2037
> It helps that our local Cragslist offers efficient buyer protection.
avhception
I regularly buy used hardware. It fails when it fails, same as the new stuff. Is there a higher probability? Possibly, but at the small sample sizes I'm at I can't feel the difference. Feels random either way.
ekianjo
Used professional hardware (servers, workstations) are made with higher quality standards so they last fairly long.
Cthulhu_
Plus if they're from a data center, they will have been in a cooled, filtered, and stable space for their lifetime, vs a desktop that may have been in a dusty room getting moved or kicked from time to time.
tasuki
Also they're good for heating your home.
mrheosuper
those are server-grade stuff, it's normal for them to work 10 years continuously.
dwaaa
Ja bym kupił pine64 serwer. Może z 10 płyt = procesorów. Wyszło by taniej i było by szybsze.
timzaman
Offtopic, I'm so confused why this is top1 on my HN? Just a pretty normal build?
eqvinox
It's not "your" HN, HN doesn't do algorithmic/per-user ranking. (Ed.: Actually a refreshing breath of wide social cohesion on a platform, IMHO. We have enough platforms that create bubbles for you.)
It's top1 on everyone's HN because a sufficient number of people (including myself) thought it a nice writeup about fat ARM systems.
baq
I haven’t been following hardware for a while, granted, but this is the first time I see a desktop build with an arm64 cpu. Didn’t know you can just… buy one.
szszrk
I guess this post proves you still can't :)
Not that much changed since this:
https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2019/10/23/what-is-wrong-w...
avhception
For what it's worth, I've been using a Lenovo X13s for some 3 months now. It's not a desktop, and it took years for core components to be supported in mainline Linux, but I do use it as a daily driver now. The only thing that's still not working is the webcam.
szszrk
Normal ARM64 80 core system with $1000 EATX motherboard? How is this typical?
tinix
EATX is a pretty standard server motherboard form factor.
It's not even a multiple CPU board...
This is indeed a pretty standard (and weak) ARM server build.
You can get the same CPU M128-30 with 128 3ghz cores for under $800 USD.
You can throw two into a Gigabyte MP72-HB0 and fit it into a full tower case easily.
That'd only cost like $3,200 USD for 256 cores.
RAM is cheap, and that board could take 16 DIMMs.
If you used 16 GB DIMM like OP that's only 256 GB of RAM, in a server, it is not that much... only one gig per core... for like $500 USD.
Maybe for a personal build this seems extravagant but it's nothing special for a server.
A few years ago I was working at a place that needed to do builds targeting the Jetson platform, and was somewhat allergic to tossing it into the cloud due to cost. We ran the numbers and the Altra paid for itself pretty quickly. Great thing, it ripped through our C++ builds + Docker image creation - I think we ended up with a 64 core version (don't remember through who, but we needed a server form factor). Ended up still moving our release builds to the cloud, due to some dicey internet situations but for local builds this thing was A+. I hope they're still using it.