ARM crunching recommendations

[Dirk Broer]

As the hobby is expensive enough as it is, here some recommendations

32-bit
32-bit is on the way out. The bigger Linux distro's don't cater it for their latest (x86-64) releases and Android is dropping 32-bit too, as is IOS.
But you might have some special need for 32-bit, what to look out for in a tablet/SBC/smartphone/whatever 32-bit ARM device?

• First: the more cores the merrier. A dual-core is more efficient than a single core, a quad-core is more efficient than a dual-core and an Octo-core is more efficient than a quad core.
  Haven't seen any hexadeca-cores, or I would recommend them.
• Second: You need at least four Cortex A-15 cores.

In all my innocence I always thought that the 2014 Cortex-A17 was the best 32-bit ARM Cortex-A chip, but according to ARM the A-17 is mainstream, while the 2010 A-15 is high performance.

Based upon this the Odroid-XU4 might be the best choice for your money, running your 32-bit Linux and Android applications. The productivity of my Odroid-XU4 is on the same level as my Raspberry Pi 4B's that operate on 32-bit Raspbian at stock speed. The stock cooling of the XU4 leaves to be desired -both in performance and noise- and it could do with a leftover chipset cooler with heatpipe and fan. But, as already said: 32-bit is on the way out.

64-bit
64-bit capable SOCs we already had some years ago, but 64-bit operating systems -and BOINC applications catering for them- were less common.
Now there is both 64-bit Linux/ARM and 64-bit Android/ARM, and we are no longer confined to the somewhat mediocre performance of the Cortex-A53 based SOCs. In the 64-bit SBC userland nothing beats the Odroid-N2+ at the moment, having a hexa-core Amlogic S922X that can be overclocked to 2400 MHz for its four high performance Cortex-A73 cores and to 2000 MHz for the two low power Cortex-A53's. Be sure to order their 80mm fan too with the board, that comes with an immense heat sink. At the moment I only have an Android equipped N2+, but I'll order one to have Ubuntu Mate or Armbian soon too. Using the route of adding an alternative platform in the cc_config.xml you can let the 64-bit ARM boxes run 32-bit apps too. At least: This works with Linux, it ought to work with Android too. And when in doubt, always go for the model with the most RAM. If you do buy a Raspberry Pi 4, make it the 8GB version, so each thread can have 2GB. I sure would welcome a 12GB Odroid-N2++, that would be able to assign the same amount of RAM to each thread though.

For other 64-bit ARM devices: look out for at least four Cortex-A7x's. The higher the number, the better it is. And make it at least 4GB of RAM.

[Dirk Broer]

With 2023 almost knocking at the door, I give my updated recommendations

32-bit: Ditch them power-sucking beasties! None of them reaches to 10.000 or more credits per KWh...
You can always set your ARMv8 crunchers to crunch 32-bit tasks via

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf
sudo apt update --fix-missing
sudo apt install libc6:armhf libstdc++6:armhf zlib1g:armhf libfuse2:armhf libgomp1:armhf libboinc7:armhf

to be sure you get all, edit you cc_config.xml to have these lines on a ARMv8 system

Code: Select all

<cc_config>
    <options>
        <alt_platform>arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf</alt_platform>
        <alt_platform>armv7l-unknown-linux-gnueabihf</alt_platform>
    </options>
</cc_config>

Mind you: with the newest and latest upcoming ARMv9 SOCs running 32-bit tasks will no longer be possible! (only applies when you are crunching on the latest high-end smartphone: Cortex-A510, Cortex-A710, Cortex-A715, Cortex-X2, Cortex-X3, Neoverse N2, Neoverse V2)

If you run a 64-bit OS on a Raspberry Pi 3, or a 4 with 1 or 2 GB of RAM (perhaps even with 4GB), be sure to install ZRAM as well:
add the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf (and then enable in real-time with the appropriate commands.)

vm.vfs_cache_pressure=500
vm.swappiness=100
vm.dirty_background_ratio=1
vm.dirty_ratio=50

To enable these settings temporarily without rebooting, use the following commands:
sudo sysctl -w vm.swappiness=100
sudo sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=500

64-bit: I set my money on the nVidia Jetson Orin family. They are, in a sequence from reasonable affordable to absurdly expensive:

1. Jetson Orin Nano 4 GB
2. Jetson Orin Nano 8 GB
3. Jetson Orin NX 8 GB
4. Jetson Orin NX 16 GB
5. Jetson AGX Orin 32 GB
6. Jetson AGX Orin 64 GB

Models 1, 2 and 3 come with a six-core Cortex-A78; Models 4 and 5 make that a eight-core; Model 6 has even a 12-core.

There's no RK3588 board that can shine a light to these specs, period.

[Dirk Broer]

Too bad that Nvidia has fallen into the same trap that SolidRun did some ten years ago, when they copied the form factor of the original Raspberry Pi but instead of the single-core ARM11 that powered the Raspberry gave you the choice of either a single-, dual-, or quad-core Cortex-A9 in their CuBoxes and on their Hummingboards. But you had to pay for the extra performance. The difference was that much that Raspberry became the industry standard while SolidRun still struggles to be alive.

Will Nvidia see thee same fate? I guess not, as they have far more irons in the fire (Dutch saying translated) with their Teslas, GPUs and specialized AI hardware. But I think it is still a crying shame that the old Cortex-A57 4GB Jetson Nano devkit is now being sold for €266.50, while that used to be €99.00! The Jetson Orin Nano starts at €645.00...

So much then for the ARM Cortex-A78 based boards, we'll stick with the Cortex-A76 for the next year(s)! The various Rockchip RK3588 models have four of those A76 cores and add another four A55s, scoring five top-10 marks in Jeff Geerling's Gflops/W rankings*. The Cortex-A76 quad-core Raspberry Pi 5 Model B(#19 for 16GB model and #20 for 8GB model), Pi 500 (17) and CM5 Compute module (14) don't do that bad either, especially at the single-core scores.

*=four of the other five consist of multi-core Altera Servers and #1 is the Apple Mac Mini M4.

[Dirk Broer]

Either Nvidia reads this forum (unlikely), or their marketing department has at least one genius: they brought out a new, uprated Jetson Orin Nano kit at half the price of the original, for a 'mere' $249 -but you get real power here. Now for a BOINC project that uses the GPU in ARM apps....
see https://jetsonhacks.com/2024/12/17/jets ... loper-kit/

[Dirk Broer]

The competition doesn't rest on its RK3588 laurels! In case you are still hesitating between buying a RK3588 board (superior performance in raw GFLOPS and GFLOPS/Watt) or a Raspberry Pi 5 (superior hardware and software support) here's a new choice:
the duodeca-core (12-core) Radxa Orion O6, World's First Open Source ARMv9 Motherboard.
Yes, no SBC but an iTX mobo featuring a Cix CD8180 SoC of Armv9.2 Architecture (so no option anymore to run 32-bit apps) with a 45 TOPS NPU.
Nobody has yet found a real need for NPUs, BOINC-wise, but that can change. If so this board has some power -even if it pales a bit against the latest Nvidia GPU/NPUs.