zlacker

With RAM it will be costing notably more, with 4 cores instead of 12. I'd expect this to run circles around an N150 for single-threaded perf too.

They are not in the same class, which is reflected in the power envelope.

BTW what's up with people pushing N150 and N300 in every single ARM SBC thread? Y'all Intel shareholders or something? I run both but not to the exclusion of everything else. There is nothing I've failed to run successfully on my ARM ones and the only thing I haven't tried is gaming.

>>baobun+(OP)
No idea - the ryzen based ones are better!

>>baobun+(OP)
1. Wow, never thought I'd need to do an investment disclosure for an HN comment. But sure thing: I'm sure Intel is somewhere in my 401K's index funds, but also probably Qualcomm. But I'm not a corporate shill, thank you very much for the good faith. Just a hobbyist looking to not get seduced by the lastest trend. If I were an ARM developer that'd be different, I get that.

2. The review says single core Geekbench performance is 1290, same as i5-10500 which is also similar to N150, which is 1235.

3. You can still get N150s with 16gb ram in a case for $200 all in.

>>baobun+(OP)
Are you sure you don't have single-threaded and multi-threaded backwards?

Why would the A720 at 2.8 GHz run circles around the N150 that boosts up to 3.6 GHz in single-threaded workloads, while the 12-core chip would wouldn't beat the 4-core chip in multithreaded workloads?

Obviously, the Intel chip wins in single-threaded performance while losing in multi-threaded: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/6304vs6617/Intel-N150-v...

I can't speak to why other people bring up the N150 in ARM SBC threads any more than "AMD doesn't compete in the ~$200 SBC segment".

FWIW, as far as SBC/NUCs go, I've had a Pi 4, an RK3399 board, an RK3568 board, an N100 NUC from GMKTec, and a N150 NUC from Geekom, and the N150 has by far been my favorite out of those for real-world workloads rather than tinkering. The gap between the x86 software ecosystem and the ARM software ecosystem is no joke.

P.S. Stay away from GMKTec. Even if you don't get burned, your SODIMM cards will. There are stoves, ovens, and hot plates with better heat dissipation and thermals than GMKTec NUCs.

>>baobun+(OP)
Because most ARM SBCs are still limited to whatever linux distro they added support to. Intel SBCs might underperform but you can be sure it will run anything built for x86-64.

>>eleven+44
> review says single core Geekbench performance is 1290, same as i5-10500 which is also similar to N150, which is 1235.

Single core, yes. Multi core score is much higher for this SBC vs the N150.

>>ekianj+o6
But realistically, most workloads of the kind you would run on these machines don't scale benefit from multithreading as much as single core performance. At least at home these machines will do things like video streaming, router, or serving files. Even if you want to use it in the living room as a console/emulator, you are better off with higher single core performance and fewer cores than the opposite.

>>drnick+1a
> in the living room as a console/emulator,

if you are talking about ancient hardware, yes, it's mostly driven by single core performance. But any console more recent than the 2000s will hugely benefit from multiple cores (because of the split between CPU and GPU, and the fact that more recent consoles also had multiple cores, too).

>>drnick+1a
> But realistically, most workloads of the kind you would run on these machines don't scale benefit from multithreading as much as single core performance. At least at home these machines will do things like video streaming, router, or serving files.

You're probably right about "most workloads", but as a single counter-example, I added several seasons of shows to my N305 Plex server last night, and it pinned all eight threads for quite a while doing its intro/credit detection.

I actually went and checked if it would be at all practical to move my Plex server to a VM on my bigger home server where it could get 16 Skymont threads (at 4.6ghz vs 8 Gracemont threads at ~3ghz - so something like 3x the multithreaded potential on E-cores). Doesn't really seem workable to use Intel Quick Sync on Linux guests with a Hyper-V host though.

>>baobun+(OP)
x86 based small computers are just so much easier to work with than most second- and third-string ARM vendors. The x86 scene has had standards in place for a long time, like PCIe and the PC BIOS (now UEFI) for hardware initialization and mapping, that make it a doddle to just boot a kernel and let it get the hardware working. ARM boards don't have that yet, requiring per-board support in the kernel which board manufacturers famously drag their feet on implementing openly let alone upstreaming. Raspberry Pi has its own setup, which means kernel support for the Pi series is pretty good, but it doesn't generalize to other boards, which means users and integrators may be stuck with whatever last version of Ubuntu or Android the vendor thought to ship. Which means if you want a little network appliance like a router, firewall, Jellyfin server, etc. it often makes more sense to go with an N150 bitty box than an ARM SBC because the former is going to be price- and power-draw-competitive with the latter while being able to draw on the OS support of the well-tested PC ecosystem.

ARM actually has a spec in place called SystemReady that standardizes on UEFI, which should make bringup of ARM systems much less jank. But few have implemented it yet. I keep saying, the first cheap Chinese vendor that ships a SystemReady-compliant SBC is gonna make a killing.

>>bitwiz+ro
> I keep saying, the first cheap Chinese vendor that ships a SystemReady-compliant SBC is gonna make a killing.

Agree. When ARM announced the initiative, I thought that the raspberry pi people would be quick but they haven't even announced a plan to eventually support it. I don't know what the hold up is! Is it really that difficult to implement?

>>baobun+(OP)
ARM SBCs that cost over $90 are totally not worth it considering those Nxxx options exist

>>baobun+(OP)
> I'd expect this to run circles around an N150 for single-threaded perf too

It has basically the same single-core performance as an N150 box

Random N150 result: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/10992465

> BTW what's up with people pushing N150 and N300 in every single ARM SBC thread?

At this point I expect a lot of people have been enticed by niche SBCs and then discovered that driver support is a nightmare, as this article shows. So in time, everyone discovers that cheap x86-64 boxes accomplish their generic computing goals easier than these niche SBCs, even if the multi-core performance isn't the same.

Being able to install a mainline OS and common drivers and just get to work is valuable.

>>baby_s+wE
The Pi boots on its GPU, which is a closed off Broadcom design. Likely complicates things a bit.

>>baobun+(OP)
> BTW what's up with people pushing N150 and N300 in every single ARM SBC thread?

Because they have a great watt/performance ratio along with a GPU that is very well supported by a wide range of devices and mainline kernel support. In other words a great general purpose SBC.

Meanwhile people are using ARM SBCs, with SoCs designed for embedded or mobile devices, as general purpose computers.

I will admit with RAM and SSD prices sky rocketing these ARM SBC look more attractive.

>>trolli+G1
Depends on what you need - for pure performance regardless of power usage and 3D use cases like gaming, agreed. For performance per watt under load and video transcoding use cases, the 12th-gen E-core CPUs ala the N100 are _really_ hard to beat.

>>baobun+(OP)
> BTW what's up with people pushing N150 and N300 in every single ARM SBC thread?

For 90% of use cases, ARM SBCs are not appropriate and will not meet expectations over time.

People expect them to be little PCs, and intend to use them that way, but they are not. Mini PCs, on the other hand, are literally little PCs and will meet the expectations users have when dealing with PCs.

>>baby_s+wE
Apparently Pine64 and Radxa sell SystemReady-compliant SBCs; even a Raspberry Pi 4 can be made compliant (presumably by booting a UEFI firmware from the Raspberry's GPU-based custom-schmustom boot procedure, which then loads your OS).

>>greena+PG
Many of the NXXX options are, sadly, going up in price a lot right now due to the RAM shortages.