By: Patrick Chase (patrickjchase.delete@this.gmail.com), August 4, 2014 7:46 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Exophase (exophase.delete@this.gmail.com) on August 4, 2014 3:20 pm wrote:
> Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on August 4, 2014 8:01 am wrote:
> > The cost difference adding the ARM CPU could be made up by using a slightly less expensive x86
> > CPU, since it wouldn't have the overhead of running OS X and could devote 100% of its resources
> > to running x86 apps.
>
> x86 CPUs have a dedicated memory controller, if you want to run another processor at the same
> time it's going to need its own memory. At a minimum.
This is a bit nit-picky, but... Xeons (E5 and up) with QPI can run without local memory. I've seen a few motherboards that work that way. Of course you pay a performance penalty, and Intel would have to license QPI or its successor fabric to them for it to be viable.
> Doug S (foo.delete@this.bar.bar) on August 4, 2014 8:01 am wrote:
> > The cost difference adding the ARM CPU could be made up by using a slightly less expensive x86
> > CPU, since it wouldn't have the overhead of running OS X and could devote 100% of its resources
> > to running x86 apps.
>
> x86 CPUs have a dedicated memory controller, if you want to run another processor at the same
> time it's going to need its own memory. At a minimum.
This is a bit nit-picky, but... Xeons (E5 and up) with QPI can run without local memory. I've seen a few motherboards that work that way. Of course you pay a performance penalty, and Intel would have to license QPI or its successor fabric to them for it to be viable.
