96Boards Officially Launches The HiKey 960 ARM Board

[notgonnasay]

Cortex-A73 is a large out of order core so performance is going to be 3x that of the Raspberry Pi in single threaded applications and 5x in multi threaded applications. This does not include GPU which is on the order of 10-100 times faster than the one in the Raspberry Pi 3.

Your numbers look completely off. Even ARM's own marketing materials for the A73 only cites 2x single thread performance over the A53, and only 30% better multi-thread performance at eight cores. Since th Pi only has 4 cores, lets say maybe 60% better for multi-threaded performance. Source: https://community.arm.com/processors...mobile-designs

What hole did you even pull the 10-100 times faster GPU number from? The Pi has an old GPU, to be sure, but big, and as far as I know there are no benchmarks that can give you any comparison points.

[speculatrix]

How does this compare with the Amlogic S905, such as you'd find in the Khadas Vim?

[starshipeleven]

2-3 times faster, hmm I did not know that and assumed 30% thinking it's like every generation of intel processors.

30% is a very generous estimate for each new gen of Intel processors. Just saying.

[FastCode]

You did not look at the specifications. A single Cortex-A73 is at least 2-3 times faster than a Cortex-A53 at the same clock frequency. So 4 Cortex-A73 @ 2.4 GHZ + 4 Cortex-A53 @1.8GHz are at least 7-8 times faster that 4 Cortex-A53 @ 1.2 GHz (e.g. Raspberry Pi 3). Thus, if you divide $240 by 8, you have $30, so the performance per dollar is at least as good as for Raspberry Pi 3 or similar computers.

This board might not be suitable for many purposes because it is unlikely that it will have good documentation and good software support, but not because of the price, which is very good for what you get.

2-3 times faster, hmm I did not know that and assumed 30% thinking it's like every generation of intel processors. guess I have to divide all those numbers by 3...
This is one of the SBCs that i was comparing(an A53): http://wiki.friendlyarm.com/wiki/index.php/NanoPi_M3

[wizard69]

Interesting comments.

Right now the HiKey 96 I see as not even an option but a mere tinker thing.

Option for what? It is a very good board for the targetted market which by the way is extremely small. It is a terrible choice if your desire is to run Linux right now.

I have a love hate relationship with ARM. However, I would really like to see a desktop alternative as an additional option alongside x86 albeit it more modifiable like the x86 platform.

Modifiable is a thing of the past!!! It is like wishing for horse and buggy in the age of the automobile. Serious we are onlyba year or two away from having RAM integrated in package. Even today there is little out side of the CPU SoC package.

I do prefer x86 and agree there is no comparison 'at the moment that is', I see massive potential in ARM based systems as multimedia/gaming/workstation capable systems. I see mobile technologies already opening up a gateway for this. While it would propose a headache for developers for example Linus Torvalds himself gives his first hand account of that.

Apple has pretty much proven that they can get laptop class performance out of ARM at much lower power levels. ARM does need a major vendor to offer an open hardware ARM platform but it would be nuts to go retro with a tower.

We are drawing closer to the handheld workstation but that is far far off in my opinion.

We are already there from the standpoint of hardware. Most cell phones are as capable as many desktops from 5 years ago. The certainly out class the machines of ten years ago. All we really need on iOS or Android is a better OS. Neither of the major cell phone. OS's can do the work station trick yet. That is not a hardware issue though.

One of the biggest problems of ARM based technologies now, quite obviously is that they are very disposable, "An Issue of Modernity". The hardware platform is a styrofoam cup due to the current lack of being modifiable in traditional sense that we PC users are accustomed to.

Well that i agree with. However that doesnt mean that a modern board standard csnt be developed.

[wizard69]

Interesting comments.

Right now the HiKey 96 I see as not even an option but a mere tinker thing.

Option for what? It is a very good board for the targetted market which by the way is extremely small. It is a terrible choice if your desire is to run Linux right now.

I have a love hate relationship with ARM. However, I would really like to see a desktop alternative as an additional option alongside x86 albeit it more modifiable like the x86 platform.

Modifiable is a thing of the past!!! It is like wishing for horse and buggy in the age of the automobile. Serious we are onlyba year or two away from having RAM integrated in package. Even today there is little out side of the CPU SoC package.

I do prefer x86 and agree there is no comparison 'at the moment that is', I see massive potential in ARM based systems as multimedia/gaming/workstation capable systems. I see mobile technologies already opening up a gateway for this. While it would propose a headache for developers for example Linus Torvalds himself gives his first hand account of that.

Apple has pretty much proven that they can get laptop class performance out of ARM at much lower power levels. ARM does need a major vendor to offer an open hardware ARM platform but it would be nuts to go retro with a tower.

We are drawing closer to the handheld workstation but that is far far off in my opinion.

We are already there from the standpoint of hardware. Most cell phones are as capable as many desktops from 5 years ago. The certainly out class the machines of ten years ago. All we really need on iOS or Android is a better OS. Neither of the major cell phone. OS's can do the work station trick yet. That is not a hardware issue though.

One of the biggest problems of ARM based technologies now, quite obviously is that they are very disposable, "An Issue of Modernity". The hardware platform is a styrofoam cup due to the current lack of being modifiable in traditional sense that we PC users are accustomed to.

Well that i agree with. However that doesnt mean that a modern board standard csnt be developed.

[LoveRPi]

With 240 USD, I can buy 9~12 quadcore or 5~8 octacore boards with a little less ram & emmc or 3~5 boards with very similar configuration all including the powersuply, fan, heatsink, box, etc that they need.

Someone enlighten me, why is this board so special that makes it worth paying 240 speechless george washingtons for?

OpenCL 2.0 will be supported so it opens the door for hundreds of computer vision projects by researchers and students. Cortex-A73 is a large out of order core so performance is going to be 3x that of the Raspberry Pi in single threaded applications and 5x in multi threaded applications. This does not include GPU which is on the order of 10-100 times faster than the one in the Raspberry Pi 3. Fully software support is included in ASOP so the latest Android will support this board. Linux components will be mainlined by Linaro.

[creative]

Right now the HiKey 96 I see as not even an option but a mere tinker thing.

I have a love hate relationship with ARM. However, I would really like to see a desktop alternative as an additional option alongside x86 albeit it more modifiable like the x86 platform.

I do prefer x86 and agree there is no comparison 'at the moment that is', I see massive potential in ARM based systems as multimedia/gaming/workstation capable systems. I see mobile technologies already opening up a gateway for this. While it would propose a headache for developers for example Linus Torvalds himself gives his first hand account of that.

We are drawing closer to the handheld workstation but that is far far off in my opinion.

One of the biggest problems of ARM based technologies now, quite obviously is that they are very disposable, "An Issue of Modernity". The hardware platform is a styrofoam cup due to the current lack of being modifiable in traditional sense that we PC users are accustomed to.

[Kendji]

I still think the Odroid XU4 is among the best price to performance of the higher end SBCs.

[AdrianBc]

With 240 USD, I can buy 9~12 quadcore or 5~8 octacore boards with a little less ram & emmc or 3~5 boards with very similar configuration all including the powersuply, fan, heatsink, box, etc that they need.

Someone enlighten me, why is this board so special that makes it worth paying 240 speechless george washingtons for?

You did not look at the specifications. A single Cortex-A73 is at least 2-3 times faster than a Cortex-A53 at the same clock frequency. So 4 Cortex-A73 @ 2.4 GHZ + 4 Cortex-A53 @1.8GHz are at least 7-8 times faster that 4 Cortex-A53 @ 1.2 GHz (e.g. Raspberry Pi 3). Thus, if you divide $240 by 8, you have $30, so the performance per dollar is at least as good as for Raspberry Pi 3 or similar computers.

This board might not be suitable for many purposes because it is unlikely that it will have good documentation and good software support, but not because of the price, which is very good for what you get.