Support for POWER9 22core?

[tle]

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?

[MPC7500]

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

[ClassicHasClass]

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.

[tle]

Thanks for the response.

[MPC7500]

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

[surf]

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:



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

[MPC7500]

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.

[FlyingBlackbird]

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

• Does the PNOR (https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/PNOR) contain the Self boot engine (SBE) code (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...

[MPC7500]

It's generic.

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

[MPC7500]

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

[deepblue]

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

[tle]

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