System76 launching ARM Pro server with 96 cores up to 1TB ECC RAM and 32TB storage

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:&#x2F;&#x2F;b2b.gigabyte.com&#x2F;Rack-Server&#x2F;R150-T61-rev-110" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;b2b.gigabyte.com&#x2F;Rack-Server&#x2F;R150-T61-rev-110</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;b2b.gigabyte.com&#x2F;Rack-Server&#x2F;R150-T62-rev-100" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;b2b.gigabyte.com&#x2F;Rack-Server&#x2F;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:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.servethehome.com&#x2F;exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx-dual-48-core-96-core-total-arm-benchmarks&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.servethehome.com&#x2F;exclusive-first-cavium-thunderx...</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.anandtech.com&#x2F;show&#x2F;10353&#x2F;investigating-cavium-thunderx-48-arm-cores" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.anandtech.com&#x2F;show&#x2F;10353&#x2F;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&#x27;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&#x27;t.

Reminds me Type 2A at Packet.net, a similar 96 core processor, 128GB RAM and 340 SSD for $0.50 USD &#x2F;hr <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.packet.net&#x2F;bare-metal&#x2F;servers&#x2F;type-2a&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.packet.net&#x2F;bare-metal&#x2F;servers&#x2F;type-2a&#x2F;</a>

I see that they&#x27;re releasing a new laptop: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;system76.com&#x2F;laptops&#x2F;galago" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;system76.com&#x2F;laptops&#x2F;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&#x27;t know if I would feel comfortable buying that over the XPS, but at least it&#x27;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:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11254755" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11254755</a>

If you&#x27;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&#x27;s how I learned what a dead pixel policy is!<p>Turns out, theirs was rubbish. The whole laptop wasn&#x27;t elegant or well constructed, but it was durable. I had to send it in for repairs once, that went well. Still, I&#x27;d never buy anything of theirs again. Ever.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cavium.com&#x2F;pdfFiles&#x2F;ThunderX_CP_PB_Rev1.pdf?x=2" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cavium.com&#x2F;pdfFiles&#x2F;ThunderX_CP_PB_Rev1.pdf?x=2</a><p>Spec sheet for the CPU is there. I just don&#x27;t see how IO doesn&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;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&#x27;s quite a price-tag, but a lot less than a high-spec Xeon server where the CPUs alone are $3000 each.<p>It&#x27;ll be interesting to see benchmarks of how this performs.

No offense to System76, I&#x27;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&#x27;m really wanting to shake Intel if possible, and I&#x27;m struggling to find chassis that support the amount of addons I require... but with these ARM servers and the network I&#x2F;O they have onboard, I&#x27;m quite excited.

Slightly off-topic; the &quot;FakeHtop&quot; element on the page is mesmerizing.

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&#x27;t know much about them, but from my first impression it looks like a company with lack of focus. I&#x27;m not sure how they will be able to create killer product in any of the segments they&#x27;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&#x27;t really recommend them.

Ordered a laptop from them back in the day. Worst purchase in my entire life.

The CPU seems to be 2x Cavium ThunderX_CP for a total of 96 cores.

What would be a typical use case for something like this?

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&#x27;t move much once it hit his desk. I didn&#x27;t like the keyboard and thought the finish wasn&#x27;t polished but I wasn&#x27;t using it.

How does that thing boot and does it work with a mainline kernel I do not have to compile myself?

All 96 cores share the same memory? Does the thing choke on memory bandwidth, or what?

Each 48 core cpu lists for $800. So why does the base system start at $6399?

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.)

What sort of workloads would this be suitable for?

What is the CPU speed for these 96 cores?

Why arm?

I need this.