alt Hacker NewsThe 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.
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inventor7777 • yesterday at 4:40 AM
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.
g947o • yesterday at 10:31 AM
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.
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.