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12-Core ARM Cluster Beats Intel Atom, AMD Fusion

Posted by timothy on from the 16-pages-seriously dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix constructed a low-cost, low-power 12-core ARM cluster running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and made out of six PandaBoard ES OMAP4460 dual-core ARMv7 Cortex A9 chips. Their results show the ARM hardware is able to outperform Intel Atom and AMD Fusion processors in performance-per-Watt, except it sharply loses out to the latest-generation Intel Ivy Bridge processors." This cluster offers a commendable re-use of kitchenware. Also, this is a good opportunity to recommend your favorite de-bursting tools for articles spread over too many pages.

3 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Were they bored? by davydagger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    half the fun is building it. good excuse to build a 12-core mini-cluster. I think this is nothing more than some nerd showing off his latest toy. Which is not a bad thing. this 12-core'd cluster might be useful, at the very least proof of concept stage. I could imagine the uses for a highly paralleled mini-super-computer on an affordable budget.

  2. Article summary says it all by Glasswire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Besides winning on performance and efficiency, the Core i7 3770K system would cost less than the cost of a six PandaBoard ES cluster setup."
    So a single Ivy Bridge system, which takes up much less rack space, no cluster network ports, outperforms and costs less than the ARM cluster. Is that the definition of a no-brainer?

  3. Re:Were they bored? by Idbar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the confusion is that people think Atom is analog to ARM. People keep confusing the fact that ARM is a core processor and Atom an SoC solution. It makes no sense comparing apples to oranges. An appropriate comparison would be an SoC from TI, Qualcomm or Samsung.