Performace uplift compared to what?
As far as i’m aware even the “top notch” RISC-V SoC available today have a far inferior performance compared to the Raspi 4.
Do you have other sources of RISC-V SoC performance?
I’d really like to see RISC-V succeed and become a relevant player in the consumer market, but i think it will take years until the reach comparable performance and platform support.
After bludgeoning us unconscious with performance charts, the author does concede that it may be code optimisation that is holding RIsc-V back. As a Haiku enthusiast, I concede that operating system is not as optimised on legacy architectures as its more established rivals, so is at less of a disadvantage on Risc-v everyone is starting from the same place!
Another one I would like to see succeed. OpenPower got to be queen of the ball with Apple and the game consoles (Playstation, Xbox, Wii) a quarter century or so back, and I root for her return! It would be boring if the duopoly of Intel and AMD is simply replicated in mobile computing by that of ARM and RISC-V.
Some very good suggestions above. I’d like to throw in a recommendation: it would be great if the next gen processor could have an IOMMU. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that the i.MX8M Plus does not have the ARM “SMMU” unlike (for example) the RK3588. This isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does open the system up to certain kinds of DMA attacks.
Genode is experimenting with using the ARM IOMMU/SMMU to provide added hardening for virtualization. They have an article that is a good primer on what this can do: Genode - An in-depth look into the ARM virtualization extensions
Would this be a good processor for mnt reform or the pocket one? sipeed 矽速科技 官网
Not ARM of course, but it might be better.
Do you mean this one:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starfive/visionfive-2/description
If so, that’s the best one I have seen so far.
Previously I said that I’m not working on x86 stuff, but if someone wanted to make an adapter I would take a look at the super compact modules from DFI (incl AMD R1000) or perhaps TQ.
That explains my confusion, appreciate the info though.
Three interesting modules (aarch64, x86_64 and risc64):
NXP i.MX 95 - Up to 6x 2.0GHz Arm Cortex-A55 cores
4GB - 16GB LPDDR5
8GB - 128GB eMMC
Intel N100 - 4c 3.4 GHz
8GB LPDDR5-4800
64GB eMMC 5.1
"All carrier board files and libraries open sourced"
SiFive Performance P550 - 4c
16GB - 32GB LPDDR5-6400
128GB eMMC
"SiFive is collaborating with Canonical to ensure that developers can smoothly run the Linux distribution on the HiFive Premier P550"
Curious about how ARM won your heart so much? Is it just a personal preference or is their a technical reason why x86 isn’t in the running for Reform upgrades?
Probably because it uses low amounts of electricity and doesn’t produce as much heat as x86 if I had to guess, but @minute can feel free to correct me.
I myself still prefer this as an idea for risc-v:
I think risc-v is a great thing, but until it can beat ARM or x86 I’m not that interested in it. I do think it being truly open however, is a great thing. I have high hopes for it.
There are several issues with x86: power draw, heat generation, security processor, unfree firmware and drivers for chipsets, security vulnerabilities, etc.
ARM isn’t perfect either, but it is a step in the right direction.
I am sure that all of us here would love for OpenPOWER, MIPS, and RISC-V to all make more progress, but they currently do not offer the perf-per-watt that ARM does.
The primary advantage of x86 would be in graphics performance and software maturity, but the trade off in efficiency is … painful.
Accurate, ARM definitely is a step in the right direction.
I do wonder how fast rk3399 and even more how fast rk3588 is compared to intel or amd processors though. Like which processor gen would they be comparable to in speed and flexibility. I saw on a benchmark it say that it is comparable to a celeron intel 2021 processor, the n100. in some functions. But that isn’t enough to tell me what I want to know yet.
and forgive my ignorance, but I don’t know how DDR4 RAM works compared to DDR3.
I don’t know therefore if 32GB of ram would be worth it for the rk3588 even for the 12.5 inch device.
If anyone knows, I am curious.
Lukas wrote their rationale, in 2019, for choosing the i.MX6QP chip for the earliest Reform prototypes,
[…] it still offers the best combination of documentation, blob-free mainline Linux and performance that you can currently get.[1]
and I think those are still the leading concerns when choosing new processor modules. x86, particularly, is probably out forever, because Intel and AMD don’t open-source any of the firmware, let alone give you any schematics.
MNT Research. “Status Update on MNT Reform”. Published 2019-01-14, last modified 2023-06-22. ↩︎