64-bit ARM server boards such as Applied Micro XC-1 Mustang and AMD Opteron A1100 development kit have been available since the beginning of the year, but only to selected companies, and at a price of several thousand dollars per board. Applied Micro is now offering their X-Gene based XC-1 development board to individual developers for $895, or about ~40% discount to the $1495 company now have to pay for the board. It may also be available from distributors (part number: EV-883208-X1-PRB-1).
XC-1 board (codenamed Mustang) technical specifications:
- SoC – Applied Micro X-GeneAPM883208-X1 8-core ARM 64-bit @ 1.6 GHz
- System Memory – 2x DDR3 UDIMM memory slots up fitted with 2x 4GB sticks (8 GB), upgradable to 16GB
- Storage – 1x 128Mbit SPI NOR Flash for booting, 1x SATA 3 ports, SD card slot, 1024Kb and 256Kb I2C EEPROM
- Connectivity – 2x Gigagit port (SGMII), 10 GbE SFP+ cage, 1x Gigabit management Ethernet port (RGMII). Note: the product brief only mentions 1x Gigabit Ethernet port, 1x Management port, but the Getting Started Guide and the picture above clearly shows all 4 Ethernet ports.
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x mini USB port (for JTAG)
- Expansion – 1x PCIe x8 connector, expansion connector(s) for GPIOs
- Debugging – JTAG (mini USB to JUAG) and trace connectors
- Monitoring – DB9 Serial port
- Misc – RTC, temperature monitor, BMC connector (I’m not sure what it is, and its purpose)
- Power Supply – mini-ATX
- Dimensions – 170 x 170 mm (mini-ITX form factor)
The kit includes X-Gene X-C1 board, a mini ITX Power Supply, a serial/USB FDTI cable, and documentation. I understand you can connect a SATA multiplier to get up to four 6TB hard drives connected to the board.
You’ll also be able to access Linux code (source and binary), U-Boot firmware (source and binary), Linux development tools, sample application code, and schematics and layout files for X-C1 board. UEFI Tianocore bootloader, as well as Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, RedHat, Fedora, OpenSUSE are also available. Download links are apparently provided in the documentation that comes with the board, or you may be able to access these after registration at https://myapm.apm.com/.
This server board is not only capable of running Linux server distributions, and you can insert a PCIe graphics card (e.g. Nvidia GeForce 7600) in to the board, and Android 4.4 Kitkat developed by Linaro, as shown on a video by Charbax, which also includes an overview of the board, and an unboxing of the kit.
Via ARMDevices.net
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Am I missing something or is that price a bit high still?
@Morgan Ross Egging
The price is still high, so it’s not for tinkerers just yet, but it’s much lower than prices ($3,000 – $5,000) announced or leaked earlier this year.
It doesn’t inspire confidence when the Applied Micro website refers to “ARM-V8” cores instead of “ARMv8” and the diagram shows “12C” instead of “I2C” (or even “I²C”). Someone please educate their sales people.
Does the pricing include the 8GB of DDR3 RAM?
@Ray Knight
That’s my understanding that the two slots are populated with two 4GB RAM sticks in the kit.
@Ian Tester
You are right, there are too many mistakes and omissions on their marketing materials: only 2 Ethernet ports instead of 4, USB 2.0 instead of USB 3.0 and so on.
Still a bit too steep for us to begin considering these for testing, but, it is much cheaper than the Opteron Kit which goes for $2,999 USD.
Yes, well, maybe I’d buy one, especially as it’s Mini-ITX and I’ve got a case waiting for it… but apparently, I can’t qualify. Never mind that I’m a U-Boot project member; my fault is to not reside in the USA — they’ll only allow US residents to register and get the developer rebate. :/
@Albert ARIBAUD
I haven’t checked the details. But If they don’t actually mind about US residency, and the only issue if having a US mailing address, you could always use something like http://www.myus.com/.
They’ll ship to the US, and forward to your country. The price would even be higher, with fee, shipping outside the US, and most likely custom fees.
@cnxsoft
Actually on the X-C1 products page, just below the limited time offer, APM direcst non-US visitors to AVNET’s site for a quote. I happen to live near enough an AVNET local branch office, so I’l try and ask them if the dev offer is applicable through them.
@cnxsoft
> Misc – RTC, temperature monitor, BMC connector (I’m not sure what it is, and its purpose)
It’s probably a “Baseboard Management Connector”. It provides hands-off server management functions: power control, IPMI (reboot), BIOS access, console access, and so on.
They’ve now launched XC-1 Plus kit with 16GB RAM, a 500 GB SATA drive and a mini-ITX chassis
https://www.apm.com/products/data-center/x-gene-family/x-c1-development-kits/x-c1-development-kit-plus/
Original price: $2495. after discount for developers: $1395
@JEN
Thanks. That’s must be the right explanation
One person got one, and wrote a getting started guide (Ubuntu) for it @ http://f2.svbtle.com/arm-64-bit-walkthrough-of-the-mustang
@cnxsoft
Just for the record, I decided to go through myus.com, because even with the account setup fees, the re-shipping costs and the customs and taxes, I still ended up paying much less than I would have the French distributor — we’re talking 40%-ish less.
Now, on to tinkering…