Raptor Computing Systems Community Forums (BETA)

Raptor Computing Systems Hardware => Blackbird => Topic started by: tle on February 15, 2020, 09:05:04 pm

Title: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: tle on February 15, 2020, 09:05:04 pm

The official product page of blackbird stated that the motherboard support up to 8-core POWER9. Wondering if it is possible to use the POWER9 22core?

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: MPC7500 on February 16, 2020, 05:56:04 am

It's possible, but not at full speed. It's linked through the power consumption -> Mainboard VRMs

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: ClassicHasClass on February 16, 2020, 07:04:33 pm

I wouldn't. At best you'll have an expensive chip that won't achieve full throughput; at worst the power draw might blow something. You really need the T2 Lite or full T2 for that.

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: tle on February 19, 2020, 06:01:22 am

Thanks for the response.

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: MPC7500 on February 19, 2020, 08:58:12 am

Also on Böackbird you have dual-channel memory, on TalosII quad-channel.

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: surf on February 24, 2020, 11:58:37 am

It seems the limitation is power draw.  The supported 8-core part is listed at 160w in the IBM datasheet, and there are a variety of core configurations that are 160w or less:

(https://i.postimg.cc/4y79XNQn/power9.gif)

So it looks like a 22-core CPU (at a lower speed) should work, if you can find one.  I think there are a variety of other CPU configurations floating around with part numbers that are not documented publicly.  For example, I can't find what a 02AA878 is, but you can buy one:

https://www.newegg.com/p/1B4-002U-00CR1

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: MPC7500 on February 24, 2020, 04:59:10 pm

Do not forget that datasheet is from 2018, referring to order numbers. And a 02CY644 should work at full speed in a Blackbird, according to this chart.

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: FlyingBlackbird on February 27, 2020, 10:02:25 am

Another aspect of getting non-supported CPUs to work with Blackbird is:

• Does the PNOR (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/PNOR (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/PNOR)) contain the Self boot engine (SBE) code (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Self-Boot_Engine (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Self-Boot_Engine)) for all IBM Power 9 CPUs or only the supported ones?

Or asked in another way: Is the SBE code generic?

> The SBE firmware is open source.

If this is fully true it should be generic code...

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: MPC7500 on February 27, 2020, 12:54:19 pm

It's generic.

https://twitter.com/octaforge/status/1126986296591831045?s=20

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: MPC7500 on April 22, 2020, 11:12:31 am

FYI, on the talos IRC is someone who is running a 18-core (190W) POWER9 on a Blackbird. And another one has overclocked a 8-core to 4.3GHz

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: deepblue on April 25, 2020, 09:10:59 am

I made a post of my experiences using the 18c Power9 CPU on a Blackbird.

https://forums.raptorcs.com/index.php/topic,99.0.html (https://forums.raptorcs.com/index.php/topic,99.0.html)

Title: Re: Support for POWER9 22core?
Post by: tle on May 09, 2020, 01:13:34 am

The wiki page is continuing to get better :D, if you are interested in learning more about Sforza IBM POWER9, check out the wikipage https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Sforza