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A bit offtopic. All AMD, Intel and ARM processors come with binary blobs that can't be disabled or removed which could potentially control your whole computer (Intel Management Engine, AMD Platform Security Processor).

Really powerful desktop and server-grade processors are available with fully open source firmware and hardware (even fully open BMC). It's not that expensive, comes with PCIe 4.0 and other modern features [1].

They are POWER9 processors, not x86_64. But many software work on it, checkout 'talos-workstation' on IRC to chat with the users [can access IRC through Element Matrix app] - someone is running Android Studio on it (yeah so much for privacy but still).

[1] https://www.raptorcs.com/

These systems are currently being used by businesses and developers alike, including Google.




Honestly, Power9 is not really powerful compared to Milan; it's 1/3 to 1/2 the performance at best. https://openbenchmarking.org/vs/Processor/AMD%20EPYC%207763%...

The desktop-grade Power9 gets rekt by a Core i3: https://openbenchmarking.org/vs/Processor/POWER9%204-Core,In...


Edit: Commented something without reading, deleted.

The advantage of POWER9 is fully open firmware and hardware while being really powerful. They won't beat the latest AMD in performance. But AMD can never be open. The RaptorCS products are FSF RYF (respects your freedom) certified.

https://ryf.fsf.org/vendors/raptor

Some benchmarks from 2019: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=rome-pow...




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