HACKER Q&A
📣 dylanetaft

ARM workstations for homelab CPU based AI Inference testing?


I am eyeing @AmpereComputing's Ampere Altra. There's a docker image for optimized PyTorch https://hub.docker.com/r/amperecomputingai/pytorch

I am pretty sure it is just OpenBlas compiled with special options + PyTorch using that, but who knows.

There doesn't seem to be a ton of affordable options. I see the Altra has ASIMD\NEON but not SVE.

If I have a budget of ~3000, is one of their systems probably the best choice? There are several standard formfactor motherboards and even combo kits available at normal outlets.

I'm not _MARRIED_ to ARM, but ~60w idle, 200w tdp when it's busy - that can be cooled quietly, and performance looks decent.


  👤 runjake Accepted Answer ✓
Jeff Geerling probably has the most public experience with Ampere, check out his blog[1] and YouTube channel[2].

Personally, I'd use a high-end Apple M3 box or an expensive x64 rig.

1. https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog

2. https://www.youtube.com/@JeffGeerling


👤 wmf
Threadripper 7000 or a Mac Studio probably offers more performance per dollar and per watt.