Raptor Computing Systems Community Forums (BETA)
OpenPOWER ISA => General Discussion => Topic started by: MauryG5 on March 07, 2020, 04:19:46 am
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Friends of Power comunity, I decided to open the first general discussion on our beloved architecture because this damned Corona Virus COVID-19 is putting a strain on the whole world but it is precisely for this reason that something that concerns us closely, is being setting in motion to resolve the situation. I speak obviously of Summit that for a few days now, it begins to peep out not only in the specific articles of technology and computers where it usually is but rather in the news pages of every day and for everyone. I shared these articles both here and on Facebook as well, just to pay homage and support the work that the United States Energy is doing and to praise our beautiful architecture and our legendary Power 9 because maybe thanks to him there will be a great contribution to defeating COVID-19! Let's say it is a great satisfaction and a pinch of pride for me to see this thing, as a sort of revenge on all those who continue to think that in the world there is only X86 and only with that you can do everything ...! So I'd say Summit come on, we're with you!
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Dear friends of the Open Power community, seeing no participation I also tell you what reason prompted me to open this post. The excuse was that through Summit I could connect to the serious problem that now afflicts the whole world or Covid-19. Maybe I should have specified it better in the opening mass but I believed that it could be alone a way to connect to the Virus and thus be able to exchange information with you about the situation in different world countries since our community expands precisely in all parts of the globe. Since this is a general section of Power discussion, we can think of taking the opportunity to talk about this big problem. Here in Italy, as you know, I think all of you, a great epidemic broke out, we have become the second most infected country unfortunately and now we are in a really bad way. The government has had to enact a series of amendments which have unfortunately forced us and I rightly say so, not to leave the house any more except for necessities such as work, food, medical examinations and drugs. The climate is surreal, seeing few cars around the streets or anyone around, makes us understand the gravity of the situation. Yesterday 9 Chinese doctors who specialized in COVID-19 arrived in Rome and should help us fight this damned virus. They also brought medical supplies such as masks and other medical instruments. The hospitals in northern Italy are collapsing, 1100 people have died so far and now they are coming to the south from me and the hospitals are also preparing for us. Unfortunately, our government has not been able to take action before and now we are in this absurd situation ... I know there are friends from Germany like my friend MPC 7500 or Flingblackbird, others who are from other states, how are you? evolving the situation from you? We have also started the local super computer to try to find a solution as soon as possible, so not only Summit but also others are working to try to defeat this damned virus ... In any case, we currently situation is dramatic ...
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I am not entirely sure to reply to such such a post; I intend no offense, but your writing is difficult for me to read and respond to in a more conversational manner; therefore I will jump straight to saying:
I suspect it may interest you to hear that Sierra (https://hpc.llnl.gov/hardware/platforms/sierra), Summit's smaller CORAL (https://asc.llnl.gov/coral-info) sibling, has also been tasked with SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 related work as well:
Coronavirus: Lawrence Livermore Lab researchers examine virus in hopes of blocking, treating it (https://abc7news.com/5906884/) - ABC7 News (San Francisco news station)
Also slightly on topic, Folding@Home has been working on SARS-CoV-2 proteins as well:
Folding@home update on SARS-CoV-2 (10 Mar 2020) (https://foldingathome.org/2020/03/10/covid19-update/)
and FoldIt is also working to a similar goal:
Special update on coronavirus puzzles (https://fold.it/portal/node/2009049) - round 3 announcement; check homepage (not blog) if round 3 has ended
I do not know if either FoldIt or Folding@Home is available for Power[PC], but if someone has time for puzzles or too many unused threads on their CPU, might be worth taking a look.
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If you didn't understand the meaning of my post, I launched it both to praise IBM's work and to share this bad experience that is uniting us all over the world because this COVID-19 is becoming a worldwide problem and I wanted to share with the whole Power community which is located in various parts of the world. Except that there is not much participation perhaps the meaning of this post has not been understood ...
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Hmm, I suppose to me praising a company or expressing pride in an architecture seems like a very strange thing to do -- I wish I knew a more delicate way to say it, but what you wrote sounds to me somewhat fanboy-ish or like corporate PR.
I think I share your enthusiasm for Power/PowerPC, and it does make me happy to see Power architecture being put to work and proving itself, but I cannot imagine myself describing that as "pride", nor Power as "beloved". Your wanting to "pay homage" to a company/product also sounds... religious? As if you are a worshiper of Power or IBM.
You write that you are in Italy, so I suspect that something is being lost in translation from Italian?
I point this out not to ridicule your English, but I think your writing *might* be a component of why there were no other responses to this thread. My gut instinct upon reading your post was a suspicion that it might be spam or trolling; or sarcastic. Were I in your shoes I think I might have written something more along the lines of the following for the first post (though were I writing for myself I would write in a different tone):
With COVID-19 putting a strain on the whole world, I am proud to see that Summit is being used help resolve the situation; as this is reaching mainstream news, I have been eagerly sharing information here and on Facebook. I am happy to see US DOE and POWER9 being used to defeat COVID-19! In addition to pride at seeing my favourite architecture at work, it makes for a nice comeback in response to those who say x86 is required to do anything of merit.
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quiet my english is basic as i have to use the translator to write and therefore it is obvious that something is lost on the street and i won't be offended if you tell me that you don't understand well. About Power I have a passion for this architecture and I have always been a supporter of the X86 alternatives, mine is also a battle against what everyone thinks wrong, I speak of the mass obviously not of us, that X86 just because it is the most used means that it is the best. So I've been carrying on this battle against that architecture for years and I'm proud of it. For the rest I repeat, it was an excuse to share the experiences of each country in these very problematic days, a way to call everyone back from all parts of the world and see how it goes ... Obviously I was wrong ...
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You should use DeepL (https://www.deepl.com/translator). It's far better than Google Translator.
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Ok thanks MPC, I'll use this and see how it behaves compared to Google translator.
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I share your enthusiasm and hope that the momentum behind Power does not get killed by this pandemic.
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No, let's hope not, Rapotor says that production does not stop in any case as far as the factory is concerned, only that shipments will be delayed due to this emergency that is really putting the whole world to the test. Here in Italy cases continue to increase despite government restrictions, people do not want to understand that they must stay at home to limit the count. I know that unfortunately the cases are increasing in the United States too, and I believe that President Trump must take serious measures to limit the count too ...
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… I have always been a supporter of the X86 alternatives, mine is also a battle against [the popular assumption] that X86, just because it is the most used, means that it is the best.
I can certainly understand that. There are many less-popular specifications, from SAS to DisplayPort to IEEE-1394/FireWire/i.link that I find myself sympathetic to, where much of the opposition seems to be due to existing popularity/install-base. I only hope Power ISA’s future is more like DisplayPort than FireWire.
It looks like the USA have different policies per-state, but Illinois (where I think Raptor is based) does have computer companies marked as exempt from the stay-at-home order, in Section 1 Subsection 12.n.
https://www2.illinois.gov/Pages/Executive-Orders/ExecutiveOrder2020-10.aspx
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Of course, the production and shipping of COVID-19 in this period also becomes a serious problem for Raptor, also in Italy in Italy they have closed almost everything except the essential companies and others converted to the production of protective masks. Except that if I'm not mistaken, the production plant, Raptor has it in Texas so maybe they don't have any particular restrictions yet but I don't know what kind of situation is in Texas currently ...
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There are many less-popular specifications, from SAS to DisplayPort to IEEE-1394/FireWire/i.link that I find myself sympathetic to, where much of the opposition seems to be due to existing popularity/install-base. I only hope Power ISA’s future is more like DisplayPort than FireWire.
Oh yeah, I like IEEE1394 (in 2005 we produced FB6000 from Stryker, which was/is used for brain surgery. This board also used 1394b.) pretty much. Sadly, FW3200 never apeared in the mainstream. NuBus was also very cool back in that date.
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I just got shipping notification on my dual-8 second Talos II system, so they're definitely getting stuff out as parts come in.
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That are great news for us and Raptor, too!
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Excellent Classic, then tell us how you configure the new computer, with all the features and any additional cards you will put ...!
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It's to become my new primary system. Most of the stuff in my dual-4 will get moved to it, and then the original dual-4 will become a spare. When my POWER6 serving Floodgap finally gets too long in the tooth and the POWER10 systems are out, if the dual-8 is still working well the dual-4 will be put back into service as my new frontfacing server (if the dual-8 craps out I'll just buy a POWER10 then).
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I get it. But which model of Power 9 have you decided to put in this new Talos? Yes Power 10 will be phenomenal but it is still far away, but I am waiting more for the new Power 9 which will in any case be a big step forward and will have a lot of power under the hood ...
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Dual 8 core POWER9s (DD2.3), like I said.
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Sorry I have not seen the post where you wrote the type of CPU you are going to mount. I read long ago your article related to the discussion of X86 and Power, their constant comparison and you wrote at some point that Power competes with X86. I am not much with this statement because I know that by nature instead Power has always been superior as an X86 micorproccesore for a variety of reasons. There are too many people who are still very ignorant today and do not realize what is really out there, so I think we should have no problem reiterating this concept in my opinion. Days ago I came across an article where he talks that in all likelihood, Apple from 2021 will bring all the Mac eco system on ARM. Under the article there were obviously several comments and a guy made a comment related to the past that made me angry a lot. He expressed his doubt about this step and wrote that at the time Apple did well to make that step because X86 is far superior to Power PC while now not sure that according to him this step can give real advantages. At that point I replied saying: nice friend you see that X86 has never been and will never be far superior to Power put it on your head. Apple at the time only switched to Intel for commercial reasons, the possibility of running Windows natively and bragging that it was much faster than a normal PC and for the reason that Power heated too much on the portals and therefore it was not possible to mount them and since it has always been their main market on the Mac side, this obviously damaged them a lot. Alche 'replies with even more ignorance and arrogance, making absurd comparisons or Macs of 2005 now no longer updated as hardwere and increasingly in difficulty' obvious and with the increasing handicap of the universal code applied from that moment until end of his days and an Intel system that was increasingly optimized and updated! Obviously that way you see the best performance on X86 we are all so good! In the end I sent him to that country for excessive ignorance and not knowing how to look beyond his nose and I ended the conversation. All this to say how many people are too convinced today, just because one thing has more trade than another but that has never meant that it is the best just because it is more commercial. So I think every opportunity is good to say and point out to these beasts, that Power is another thing and that is above them!
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I second that. It would be one thing if any x86 board maker went out, but the loss of Raptor would mean the effective end of something that is quite honestly a rare anomaly in the industry.
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I just got shipping notification on my dual-8 second Talos II system...
I was wondering how your upgrade went. I follow your blog and really appreciate your contributions to the community. With so many options, how did you pick the dual 8-core setup? For example, it looks like you could get a single 18-core CPU for less than the dual 8, and you would have an empty socket for future upgrades.
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For the T2, you really want both processor sockets filled, or you lose slots (because the CPUs provide the PCIe lanes; it's not something Raptor did to make you buy more than you need). A single-socket T2 would only be useful if you didn't need the expansion and I do. That's really the sales case for the T2 Lite anyway (you need more threads than a Blackbird can handle, but you don't need the expansion options of the full T2).
Anyway, it didn't start off swimmingly but for various reasons not all due to that system specifically. Fortunately things are back in order and I'll have more to say about it when I finish getting all the pieces back together.
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Thanks for the reply. I also just saw your blog post--very thorough! The explanation for filling both sockets makes sense. I guess I hadn't picked up on that before.
Do you know which CPUs you got? If some of your tests ran the same then I'm guessing the CPU speed was the same. From the datasheet I've seen, the 02CY649 DD2.3 8-core part has a 3.8GHz "boost" speed, which would be the same as the 02C297 4-core part. The "base" frequency is higher, whatever that means. I'm guessing the CPU automatically ramps to 3.8GHz under load (temperature permitting)?
The datasheet also lists a 02WP000 DD2.3 8-core CPU a 4.1GHz.
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Derp. It would have been a good idea for me to actually check the number before I installed it, but Raptor's specs (mostly) match the 02CY649.
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... and, double derp, I could have just asked lshw. Indeed it is 02CY649.
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Thank you for your confirmation of your CPU model info, I was trying to add these to a list on the Sforza wiki page (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Sforza#RCS_modules_sold), but it has been guesswork until now. If others could check via lshw what their CPU models are, that could help flesh out the list.
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My 2x8 T2 shows 02CY089 for both processors.
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This has me curious now where the Raptor boards are manufactured. It is in the states?
Edit: The boards appear to be produced in Texas according (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=power9-threadripper-core9&num=1) to Phoronix (https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raptor-Blackbird-Shipping).
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Hi Borley, I confirm that Raptor cards are built entirely in the United States of America, I believe that to date they are the only ones that can boast the construction of a motherboard for desktop computers, specifically in the West and America. Power 9 pure is produced in the United States but in New York, a Global Foundries factory that was owned by IBM micro elettronics and which left IBM's proprietary 14 nM production process as a dowry. One of the things I like most about our Power systems is this one, motherboard and processor, all made in the USA, against the rest of the world that is made in China and Taiwan ...! In fact, Raptor is proud of this and I agree with them perfectly!