Yeah, I also have a HiFive Unleashed which is totally open, but it doesn't really aim to compete with Raptor iiuc. Until recently it also won out on open ISA, too, and the Blackbird has to be bootstrapped by the ARM BMC - which is a nonfree ISA. Power consumption is another story as well. Raptor systems is definitely the only realistic competitor to x86_64, though, for desktop and server use-cases.
Yep, definitely agreed. FWIW we're not happy with the ARM baseboard controller either and are making progress toward fixing that particular concern. All I'll say on that is that the POWER ISA opening had to happen before we could start work in earnest on getting rid of the ASpeed... ;)
