[twotwotwo]

I think the big use case for ARM in datacenters, over the next few years, is for servers whose CPU usage is very low today--they're consistently network-bound or they just act as a relatively dumb interface to RAM or disk (memcached, some distributed DBs, some dumb proxies). Baidu uses ARM for cloud storage, Facebook used AMD servers for memcached despite their lagging Intel on speed. Basically, you look elsewhere when a Xeon is too much.

Someday comes a point where apps that actually are compute-bound might want to use more, slower cores for power/density/cost/etc.--I just don't think that cutover is tomorrow for the kind of apps (most of) you or I work on.

Further out: This is a Marvell-designed core that looks slower than the Cortex-A15-based Tegra K1 in a Chromebook (posted results elsewhere in the comments; it could be a clock-speed issue, not anything inherent to the core designs). Further out, there're some 64-bit ARM cores (Cortex-A57, X-Gene, Project Denver though that may not wind up in servers) and at process bumps (like TSMC 20nm). Related, check out http://www.anandtech.com/show/8580/hp-appliedmicro-and-ti-br... if you haven't. Of course, Intel isn't sleeping, and low-power x86 chips will improve, too; there will be 14nm versions of the Atom-based Xeons someday. As ever, fun times.

[tonyplee]

This Marvell SOC has 16 Serdes integrated inside the SOC can be partition to Gige ethernet, SATA, or PCIe in any numbers of ways.

http://www.marvell.com/embedded-processors/armada-xp/

Along with low power, make it very interesting.

I can see someone put 64, 128 of them in 1U chassis. This might be interesting low cost system for someone who need simulcast live video streams to millions of users at really low cost.

"64 4 cores CPU each with integrated 16 GIGE ports for fan out live video stream that potentially fit inside 1U chassis"

[nbkolchin]

128 Armada cores in 1U is nearly impossible due to cooling issues.

[tonyplee]

May be not for Armada, but most of cell phone ARM cpu, the power is 1-2 watts at max frequency.

If that hold true, 128 SOC in 1U can be 2-300 Watts. That can true ly go against x86 for "some" applications.

[nbkolchin]

Actually 3-5 for current gen. And you don't count all other things that are necessary for practical system: PCI-E connectors, RAM, Ethernet PHYs, etc.

P.S. I believe in 64 in 2U, though.