[Arm-dev] supported 64bit hardware

Sun Sep 18 17:55:47 UTC 2016
Jeffrey Walton <noloader at gmail.com>

> I want to buy a few small ARMv8 boards to run CentOS on. Seems like a reasonable idea to offload simple services onto simple boards. Is this page still accurate?
> https://wiki.centos.org/SpecialInterestGroup/AltArch/AArch64
>

There are four small ARMv8 dev-boards I am aware. I have all of them
for testing software. They are:

* LeMaker HiKey (Aarch64, ASIMD, CRC, Crypto)
* Pine64 (Aarch64, ASIMD, CRC, Crypto)
* ODROID-C2 (Aarch64, ASIMD, CRC)
* Raspberry Pi-3 (Armhf (not even Aarch32))

I would avoid the RPI3. Its in a crummy configuration, and mine died
after about 2 weeks. if you try to enable CRC with CFLAGS =
-march=armv8-a+crc, then you get obscure crashes due to PCS
incompatibility.

I the Pine64 is the best value because its less expensive than the
comparable HiKey. HiKey runs around 1.2 Ghz, while Pine64 runs around
2.0 GHz.

At the higher end, there are two servers I am aware. I believe the
Applied Micro X-gene is the Mustang board.

* Mustang board (early ones lack CRC and Crypto)
* Overdrive 1000 (AMD ARMv8 processor)

I recommend the server boards if you have the money. They are much
faster than the dev-boards. I use Robert Nelson's Mustang for testing
(he's kind enough to provide remote access).

I tried to purchase an Overdrive for testing three months ago. I was
really looking forward to testing on the Overdrive. So were others
like Andy Polyakov from OpenSSL. The Overdrive never arrived (more
correctly, it never shipped), and I'm trying to get a refund on the
purchase.

Jeff