Ordered a 1U from them. Going on a month now with no delivery date yet and no indications there would be a problem until after we ordered. Not a big deal for us, we can wait and ordered it because it was cheap, but consider yourselves warned.
I got Lemur 14" laptop a while back and absolutely hated the build quality. The keyboard is terrible and the screen has the worst viewing angles of any laptop I've ever owned. I got tired of it after 4 or 5 months and converted it to a home server and it's been super reliable in that mode since 2014. AND it also has the benefit of staying online during power outages.
This is a Gigabyte server, probably one of the following:<p><a href="http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T61-rev-110" rel="nofollow">http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T61-rev-110</a><p><a href="http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T62-rev-100" rel="nofollow">http://b2b.gigabyte.com/Rack-Server/R150-T62-rev-100</a><p>What value-add does System76 provide?
Sadly these gen-1 ThunderX cores are pretty poor in performance and not particularly power-efficient either. Cache performance is especially sucky.
<a href="https://www.servethehome.com/exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx-dual-48-core-96-core-total-arm-benchmarks/" rel="nofollow">https://www.servethehome.com/exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx...</a>
<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thunderx-48-arm-cores" rel="nofollow">http://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thu...</a><p>I hope that this is just a rebranded system showing the redyness of System76 and raising awareness about such products so that they're better positioned for the ThunderX2 release later this year.
aah system 76. I hope they have improved recently with their customer service but I had a horrible experience with them back in 2013 when they had to replace a keyboard (the CEO actually sent an email explaining how shitty their keyboard was) and when I asked for a refund, they simply refused. NO refunds. I had to literally open the laptop myself and install the new keyboard.<p>I am not one of those types who asks for refunds on anything. This was genuinely a defective laptop with a faulty keyboard (turns out that is how they were shipping it back then to everyone) and their answer was to replace with the new one (after the CEO sent a bulk email to every customer) . Why should I have to go through that hassle ? This was the first time I almost thought of doing a chargeback but didn't.
Reminds me Type 2A at Packet.net, a similar 96 core processor, 128GB RAM and 340 SSD for $0.50 USD /hr <a href="https://www.packet.net/bare-metal/servers/type-2a/" rel="nofollow">https://www.packet.net/bare-metal/servers/type-2a/</a>
I see that they're releasing a new laptop: <a href="https://system76.com/laptops/galago" rel="nofollow">https://system76.com/laptops/galago</a><p>This is probably the first laptop from them that I could consider buying, judging solely on that small picture of it.<p>Still super-thick, and I don't know if I would feel comfortable buying that over the XPS, but at least it's got HiDPI, which for the price they sell their laptops for I feel should be included.
If anyone wants to use these for web servers, you might want to think again.<p>Facebook did the same evaluation recently and decided that the Intel Xeon-D chip was best [1].<p>YMMV<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11254755" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11254755</a>
If you're looking for a server dedicated to supporting Linux, I suggest checking out Penguin Computing. They have a much better reputation and have much better servers than this System76 attempt.
I wanted to like System76. I had a dead pixel on a new machine that was to be my new workhorse AAAAAND that's how I learned what a dead pixel policy is!<p>Turns out, theirs was rubbish. The whole laptop wasn't elegant or well constructed, but it was durable. I had to send it in for repairs once, that went well. Still, I'd never buy anything of theirs again. Ever.
<a href="http://www.cavium.com/pdfFiles/ThunderX_CP_PB_Rev1.pdf?x=2" rel="nofollow">http://www.cavium.com/pdfFiles/ThunderX_CP_PB_Rev1.pdf?x=2</a><p>Spec sheet for the CPU is there. I just don't see how IO doesn't end up murdering performance. 16MB shared L2 is across all the cores?
If anyone is interested in buying a System 76 product and have it delivered outside of US, please take into account that the price doesn't include VAT. This has to be payed separately, which usually means that each device is ~20% more expensive (when delivered outside of US).<p>I ended up having to pay 400$ more for delivery + VAT for a laptop (didn't know about the VAT tax at that time). Very good performance, but rather mediocre quality (1 usb port is completely unusable).
From $6399USD. That's quite a price-tag, but a lot less than a high-spec Xeon server where the CPUs alone are $3000 each.<p>It'll be interesting to see benchmarks of how this performs.
No offense to System76, I'm very happy they are entering this space early. I just will wait for one of the biggies (e.g. dell, lenovo) so that I know the hardware could be supported.<p>I'm really wanting to shake Intel if possible, and I'm struggling to find chassis that support the amount of addons I require... but with these ARM servers and the network I/O they have onboard, I'm quite excited.
In 2013, I ordered a laptop from them as well. First, my screen died within a few months. I encountered hidden fees and rudeness trying to work through their tech support and warranty policy. Then, the motherboard died within the year.
So many product lines for such a small company. Laptops, Desktops, Servers.
Not even Apple is able to effectively manage this many different products.<p>I don't know much about them, but from my first impression it looks like a company with lack of focus. I'm not sure how they will be able to create killer product in any of the segments they're trying to compete in.<p>Based on my above observation (admittedly superficial), I would never buy anything from them. I would not trust the quality nor their ability to be able to support it.
Purchased two linux desktops from them. Neither lasted more than a year. Purchased two small servers, both doing fine. Overall I can't really recommend them.
anecdata: bought a Bonobo from them a couple of years ago at $EMPLOYER for a [semi]portable workstation. Arrived in just few days and it was as expected.<p>The developer who used it liked it though it didn't move much once it hit his desk. I didn't like the keyboard and thought the finish wasn't polished but I wasn't using it.
thats impressive. 96 cores starting at 6k? did anybody else configure a silverback workstation with all the options to see what it would cost? ($33k...but wow.)