[g947o]

Most people don't care about nominal difference in x86 vs arm. They care about cost, performance, efficiency, noise etc. Which applications run on the machine does matter.

The article never explained why the author wanted an ARM setup. I can only consider this a spiritual thing, just like how the author avoids Debian without providing any concrete explanations.

[CharlesW]

The usual reason to prefer ARM is efficiency, and the author's mention of replacing "power-hungry HPE towers" seeems to support that as a primary motivating factor.

[inventor7777]

True. But as detailed in the Jeff Geerling article that was shared here in the comments, it has (at least at the moment) a rather high idle power draw, which seems to negate that, especially over time.

[adrian_b]

This ARM computer has a much higher (3 to 4 times higher) idle power consumption than a mini-PC with an Intel or AMD CPU (e.g. an ASUS NUC), while having the same price and a much lower performance.

So in this case, the only valid reason to choose it is to have the ARM ISA for the purpose of software development.

This Chinese CPU is the only Armv9 CPU that is available in anything else than smartphones or expensive computers from Apple, Qualcomm or NVIDIA (or in even more expensive big servers). So there may be cases when it is desirable for software development, even if it has some quirks.

[g947o]

That is meaningful only if there is evidence to support that.

Mobile x86 processors used in mini PCs these days (as in 2026) are very competitive in terms of power efficiency. I wouldn't go for ARM just for that factor alone, especially without side-by-side comparisons of benchmarks.

[esseph]

> Most people don't care about nominal difference in x86 vs arm.

"Most people" aren't on HN, either.

The # of ARM servers at cloud providers are growing, but the ARM server options are severely lacking for most.

I, personally, would like to see more ARM growth (and I think we're heading that direction anyway... look at NVIDIA right now). Buying ARM servers that help push ARM software development forward is probably a good thing, IMO, from that POV.

[throwaway27448]

> Most people don't care about nominal difference in x86 vs arm.

That's rubbish; even the people who don't care about ISA will care about stuff like power draw and software availability (although ironically arm seems distinctly worse in terms of power draw here).

But, I hope there are other people like me who will take a premium to avoid reading x86 core dumps, which is sort of like getting nails driven through your eyes. Yes, there's more software optimized for the chips; it is still bad code.