SiFive HiFive Unmatched Hands-On, Initial RISC-V Performance Benchmarks

[bridgman]

It would be more appropriate to compare it with a contemporary in the same class... basically any netbook from about 4 years ago would have similar microarchitecture.

Are you talking about Atom cores ? IIRC they were out-of-order starting with Silvermont in 2013, and even the earlier in-order cores used SMT to allow one thread to continue execution while the other was stalled on a memory access. Not as effective as a full OOO core but definitely makes a difference.

[brucehoult]

Ehh, it's uboot that's the turn off here. Note that this board still needs to bootstrap off uboot AND the microSD containing the OpenEmbedded distribution with its hardware-specific kernel and stuff before the RISC-V version of Ubuntu could start.

If RISC-V's goal is to carve out a place in all segments of computing, it eventually has to reach a state where the current PC platform over x64 is; a boot firmware (UEFI) takes care of initializing the CPU, all the stuff on the motherboard, then hands over everything to a generic OS that finishes off the boot process. That means no hardware or device-specific kernels or OSes, like what is currently plaguing ARM.

That is *exactly* what is happening here.

A machine-specific uboot & OpenSBI are loaded, and then they load a completely generic RISC-V Linux.

At present uboot and OpenSBI are being updated constantly and it's best to have them on SD card. Later when they stabilise they can be in the SPI flash chip that is also on the board, and DIP switches changed to boot from that instead.

[wizard69]

Wow, that the $70 pi400 significantly outperforms this nearly 10x more expensive Risc V board says quite a lot.

The expense of the board in this context means nothing as it is a developers board. The lack of performance though is a bit of a bummer. I really wonder if Risc-V will ever catch up with ARM in a meaningful manner.

I'm all for interesting non-x86 uarch, but it appears Risc-V has a looong way to go to become a viable option. With 16 GB, x16 PCIe, and an NVMe M.2 slot, this board does have some compelling expansion options as compared with rpi. Do they offer a case for it, for desktop use?

The RPi is limited in comparison but for a lot of embedded usage it offers a huge amount of bang for the buck. I'm pretty sure a rational developer could offer a RPi class board with this processor in the same price range, it really comes down to the SoC cost. Of course the current chip manufacturing crisis is another problem that will impact board prices for sometime to come. The problem is why? I mean literally if the ARM solutions are so much more powerful why bother with Risc-V.

One answer to that question might be seen in that little fan on the SOC. With a bit of imagination that chip might make for a nice passively cooled computer.

[brucehoult]

The expense of the board in this context means nothing as it is a developers board. The lack of performance though is a bit of a bummer. I really wonder if Risc-V will ever catch up with ARM in a meaningful manner.

Catch up, and overtake. Top CPU designers have recently been streaming from Apple, Intel, and AMD to startups working on RISC-V chips that will be in x86 and Apple M1 class. It's just a matter of appropriate investment.

https://semianalysis.com/a-chip-off-...intel-and-amd/

https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/01/ventana_micro_riscv_processors_chiplets/

[igxqrrl]

Complaining about the price of this board is a bit misguided IMHO. This piece of equipment is expensive because it is more or less a prototype manufactured in tiny quantities compared to x86 or rpi. It should not be judged based on its performance per dollar ratio. Another aspect making this more expensive is the RAM, NVMe, PCIe etc. This is not meant for hobbyists. This is meant for people who are in charge of getting other hardware or platforms up and running on RISC-V otherwise putting a dedicated GPU and an NVMe drive on such a low performance device makes no sense. To them, the price and performance are just a side note.

I agree with everything you're saying.

On the other hand it seems very slow progress in this space. It's been nearly 4 years since the HiFive Unleashed. I suspect many of us were hoping for a system that was at least "usable" by now, but clearly this isn't it.

[igxqrrl]

Catch up, and overtake. Top CPU designers have recently been streaming from Apple, Intel, and AMD to startups working on RISC-V chips that will be in x86 and Apple M1 class. It's just a matter of appropriate investment.

https://semianalysis.com/a-chip-off-...intel-and-amd/

https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/01/ventana_micro_riscv_processors_chiplets/

At the same time there has been a long-term flight of talent away from many of the RISC-V design houses. Including many who have returned to Intel or elsewhere whence they came.

[muncrief]

Unfortunately the Raspberry Pi 400 is a far more powerful, fully functional, all in one computer. And it's only $100. And you can do all kinds of cool things with it, including using it as an ARM development system.

So the very expensive, low powered, SiFive HiFive Unmatched board is only going to be purchased by those who have an immediate need to develop for RISC-V, and that's not very many people.

It's a shame, because unless SiFive and other RISC-V companies can compete in price and performance with ARM and x86 they are not going to succeed. I mean really, just looking at the dismal performance of this board is heartbreaking.

[SavageX]

The lack of performance though is a bit of a bummer. I really wonder if Risc-V will ever catch up with ARM in a meaningful manner.

SiFive themselves have much more beefy CPU designs: https://www.sifive.com/cores/performance-p550

The SoC on this particular devboard is not a demonstrator for their high-end designs.

[brucehoult]

Unfortunately the Raspberry Pi 400 is a far more powerful, fully functional, all in one computer. And it's only $100. And you can do all kinds of cool things with it, including using it as an ARM development system.

So the very expensive, low powered, SiFive HiFive Unmatched board is only going to be purchased by those who have an immediate need to develop for RISC-V, and that's not very many people.

It's a shame, because unless SiFive and other RISC-V companies can compete in price and performance with ARM and x86 they are not going to succeed. I mean really, just looking at the dismal performance of this board is heartbreaking.

This is just completely wrong-headed.

This system is aimed precisely at those people who specifically want to develop RISC-V software, so that web browsers and everything else is ready to go when cheaper boards arrive.

When you're paying a programmer $10,000+ a month it's pretty much completely irrelevant whether the tools they are using cost $100 or $700. The price is completely in line with a Mac or name brand PC. With the Unmatched, the programming professional can use the high quality keyboard, video card, monitor, NVMe SSD etc of their choice.

If you want your eyes to really water, look at the $10k price of ARM's equivalent manufacturer's dev boards.

No professional wants to use a rinky-dink Pi400 day in and day out, no matter what the raw price/performance ratio looks like.

It's like the ZX80 kiddos 40 years ago claiming that their computer is faster than an Apple or BBC or IBM machine costing five times more. On raw CPU spec, yes it is, but that's not the only thing that counts when you want to actually get work done.

[rmfx]

$700 for this? What a fucking joke!

The fucking joke is you unfortunately...

Your rant sounds like you don't understand what dev is even.