ARM aims for the server room with its new 64-bit ARMv8

[Sabre]

Ars Tech

Chip design firm ARM today announced the eighth generation of its ARM Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). The ARMv8 ISA extends the current ARMv7 architecture to include support for 64-bit addressing. The company said that this move would enable the architecture to be used in servers and other enterprise roles, bringing ARM's low-power advantage to a market that's increasingly challenged by power consumption and energy efficiency.

ARMv7 provides a 32-bit virtual address space, coupled with a maximum of a 40-bit physical address space. This allows ARMv7 designs—such as the Cortex A8 and Cortex A9 designs that power many smartphones, including Apple's iPhone 4S—to give each application its own private allocation of 4GiB memory, and potentially to address a total of 1TiB physical RAM.

Interesting to see how ARM's focus has been changing as of late!

[complacent]

if they can make the bits happy with such low-power chips we're going to see rack density (relative to cores and such) absolutely skyrocket. i can't wait to see what happens. this could be the first credible challenge to "old iron" x86 based rule of the datacenter. if i was oracle i would be watching this very closely.

[Sabre]

Well, that was quick! HP Project Moonshot hurls ARM servers into the heavens

...
That gives you 288 server nodes in a 4U rack space, or 72 servers per rack unit. That's 20 per cent more server density than the alpha test machine from Calxeda could do earlier this year with very early samples of its ARM chips.

That SL6500 chassis in the Redstone system has three pooled power supplies that can back each other up and keep the nodes going in the even one of them goes the way of all flesh. The system has eight cooling fans. Each tray has four 10Gb/sec links that come off the internal EnergyCore Fabric Switch.

All of these ports can be cross-connected using 10Gb/sec XAUI cables, and scaled across as many as 4,096 sockets. (By the way, 4,000 servers is pretty much the upper scalability limit of a Hadoop cluster these days.)
...

[Raven]

Just tell me what my next gaming machine needs to be! >.<

[Sabre]

PS4 If Sony has ANY wits about them, they will take the PS3 and just add more Cell processors and a better rendering chip. That makes it very easy for the developers to use the same techniques they have been using with the PS3 for the PS4.

But that, I suppose, is a little off subject

[PGT]

interestingly, Sony just hired a deputy undersecretary of defense for their newly created CISO position.

[Sabre]

I can see them pushing Cell in to some government customers...

[Mr Kleen]

After owning both consoles, then selling my XBox and using the PS3 for my only gaming machine I feel qualified in saying "stay far away from Playstation if your goal is fun." The PS3 was designed by engineers, the 360 was designed by gamers. At every turn the PS3 makes things difficult. Usually for the sake of technology. I don't care if it's faster, I play games to have fun and the 360 is just more fun. Simple as that.
I'm going back to PC gaming till I move back to the states.
/endrant

[complacent]

After owning both consoles, then selling my XBox and using the PS3 for my only gaming machine I feel qualified in saying "stay far away from Playstation if your goal is fun." The PS3 was designed by engineers, the 360 was designed by gamers. At every turn the PS3 makes things difficult. Usually for the sake of technology. I don't care if it's faster, I play games to have fun and the 360 is just more fun. Simple as that.
I'm going back to PC gaming till I move back to the states.
/endrant

with the exception of gt5, i've not had the same experience you've had at all... ps3 was easily the best $200 i spent on entertainment in the last four years.

i also don't play mmo fps games. that might have something to do with it.

[Sabre]

I haven't played on a XBox, but I find the PS3 pretty decent. Titles like Little Big Planet, God of War etc. keep me coming back and certainly entertain me. For all FPS's though, I use my PC. I can stand consoles for FPS!

[Mr Kleen]

I'm referring to the install times, the update issues (both for new games you want to play NOW and the firmware updates that sign away legal rights), the horrible online integration, the lack of an IR port, and the controllers: Bluetooth makes it impossible to swap controllers when one runs out of battery power, the internal battery makes it impossible to swap when it runs out, you have to remember to plug the controller in to a powered USB port when the PS3 is off.

More than once I've had "controller 1" go dead while playing only to be told that I can't use "controller 2" even though only a single controller is active. So either I plug the controller in to the laptop for a few hours or I sit 4 feet away from the PS3 with my longest USB cable.

The Xbox feels like a complete product that a single team worked on with a single goal: to have fun playing video games.

Sony was smart to put BluRay in the PS3, now that Gran Turismo has fallen off I have no other reason to own a PS3.

[complacent]

install times i'll give you. but you encounter the same problem with a pc port of a game. i will agree that game patches seem to be easier on xbros.

bluetooth has been great for me. why let a controller die? controller starts blinking? follow these easy steps:

- hit the ps button and turn off your controller
- turn on your second controller
- go about your day pwning n00bs.

i've never let a controller go all the way dead.

[Mr Kleen]

When I turn on controller 2 the game asks me to reconnect controller 1.

[Sabre]

Sounds like the game can't handle the transition, but the system can.

[Mr Kleen]

It's happened a few times in the years I've had the PS3 on a few different games. Not a lot, just enough to annoy the crap out of me. Especially when I see how simple and effective the 360 controller solution is.

[complacent]

When I turn on controller 2 the game asks me to reconnect controller 1.

this happens after you turn off controller 1? you have to do that first.

[Mr Kleen]

Yes, but it's been some time since it's happened. I'll try again should this occur in the future.

sorry for the hijack.