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Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

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Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#121

Post by walrus01 »

shaklee3 wrote: post #117
walrus01 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for special US DoD things (like supercomputers that simulate nuclear weapons) for Sandia Labs and the like, the math also doesn't work out for HPC... Let's say that a 44RU rack of 1U, narrow (half of 17.5" width), dual motherboard, single socket systems costs $N if it's built with Xeon or EPYC CPUs. As an example here the Supermicro barebones which are two long, narrow motherboards in 1RU with single sockets a…

I don't follow the logic. Where are you getting your pricing information from? Why do you think power is more expensive?

the cheapest power8 server I have ever seen was probably 4x more expensive then the equivalent dual socket xeon. That info is a bit stale. But there is also a complete lack of good information online about actual dollar figures for power8 systems (a lot of "contact us for more info!"). The platform's pricing is aimed at the sort of CTO people who don't care about the cost of Oracle licensing. Not the sort of people who care about $/MIPS for HPC applications or cloud scale hypervisor platforms.

I would very much like to be proven wrong so if you have access to some specific "this hardware spec costs this much money and you can buy it now" info, that i can compare to barebones supermicros, please do share it.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#122

Post by quillo »

I have a serious bee in my bonnet about POWER9.

The architecture was something I was very excited about for low latency workloads; it seemed that only thing stopping IBM from overtaking x86 in this space was the actual availability of hardware. POWER9 has been "in the works" for, what, two years now [1]? Google have been running POWER9 internally for at least 12 months [2], and IBM seem to have been caught up in the AI hype train by pivoting the POWER9 to some kind of "AI processing system" [3].

Had the P9 been released before Skylake, it might have been successful. By the time it is GA, it will be competing with x86 chips two generations higher than were available at the original P9 announcements and SPECInt benchmarks.

This has been made even more frustrating by the fact that Oracle effectively killed off SPARC during this time. Perhaps Fujitsu will continue to run with it, but I think it's fair to say that development will stagnate and support will dwindle as it is increasingly obscure and niche architecture.

[1] https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/08/24/big-blue-aims-sky-po...

[2] https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/10/introducing-Zai...

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2017/12/08/why-i...

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#123

Post by nordsieck »

flamedoge wrote: post #68
berkut wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but even when throttled, it can often be faster than full-clock less wide instructions, if your workload allows for it. So it's sometimes worth it and there is a benefit.

It's power throttled by design. I don't think it's heat throttled. I'm sure Intel could push for higher power or optimize power to allow full bandwidth performance, perhaps there isn't a strong demand for sustained, full-width vector execution, yet.

> I don't think it's heat throttled.

"Processors have two modes of thermal protection, throttling and automatic shutdown. When a core exceeds the set throttle temperature, it will start to reduce power to bring the temperature back below that point."

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000...

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#124

Post by kev009 »

walrus01 wrote: post #121
shaklee3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow the logic. Where are you getting your pricing information from? Why do you think power is more expensive?

the cheapest power8 server I have ever seen was probably 4x more expensive then the equivalent dual socket xeon. That info is a bit stale. But there is also a complete lack of good information online about actual dollar figures for power8 systems (a lot of "contact us for more info!"). The platform's pricing is aimed at the sort of CTO people who don't care about the cost of Oracle licensing. Not the sort of people w…

Email supermicro and ask about pricing, they are trying to gauge interest currently.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#125

Post by flamedoge »

nordsieck wrote: post #123
flamedoge wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's power throttled by design. I don't think it's heat throttled. I'm sure Intel could push for higher power or optimize power to allow full bandwidth performance, perhaps there isn't a strong demand for sustained, full-width vector execution, yet.

> I don't think it's heat throttled. "Processors have two modes of thermal protection, throttling and automatic shutdown. When a core exceeds the set throttle temperature, it will start to reduce power to bring the temperature back below that point." https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000...

I mean in the context of fully loading AVX512 vector processor.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#126

Post by frankchn »

classichasclass wrote: post #67
marshray wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have I been to your house?!

Does that mean it doesn't boot? I will concede one point: it was not easy to purchase. I prefer to host my personal site on Power hardware; I started with AIX in the 3.2.5 days and I ran Floodgap on an Apple Network Server 500 for the better part of 14 years. I wanted to get a POWER7 to replace it in 2010, I budgeted $15k for it, and IBM wouldn't take my money. I couldn't find _any_ IBM VAR who would do an end-user s…

Even in your example, the barrier or entry is still so high — I can buy a very nice new x86 machine for $10k, instead of a 2 year old POWER system. I am interested in the POWER architecture, but not buy $10k worth of old hardware interested.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#127

Post by shaklee3 »

walrus01 wrote: post #121
shaklee3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow the logic. Where are you getting your pricing information from? Why do you think power is more expensive?

the cheapest power8 server I have ever seen was probably 4x more expensive then the equivalent dual socket xeon. That info is a bit stale. But there is also a complete lack of good information online about actual dollar figures for power8 systems (a lot of "contact us for more info!"). The platform's pricing is aimed at the sort of CTO people who don't care about the cost of Oracle licensing. Not the sort of people w…

You're right in that the sticker price is much, much higher. I'm surprised you were even available to find one. IBM tends to like to keep things secret until you reach out to them, for better or for worse. I would like to see some public power 9 benchmarks to compare to xeons instead of just marketing speak as well.

But I will say that your comment about $/MIPS isn't accurate. There are many people, including Oakridge national labs, who are using it because of the higher performance and v100 integration. Intel is obviously not too keen on letting Nvidia succeed.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#128

Post by kev009 »

voxadam wrote: post #112
kev009 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't actually buy TX2. I don't know about market availability of Amberwing either (if you know please let me know). There is an abundance of arm stuff in the embedded space where it is king, and it's true you can pick them up for next to nothing but somewhat orthogonal to servers (flattened device trees vs ACPI/UEFI etc) You can web buy an S821LC straight from IBM for $5k for the past couple years. The AC922 is…

Why can't you buy a TX2? Arrow appears to have 462 in stock right now.

see i.e. https://www.servethehome.com/gigabyte-thunderxstation-using-... for public info

"At STH we are working with Gigabyte and Cavium and will share more about the ThunderX2 architecture as we are given the go-ahead. We have heard the next production run is in the Q2 2018 timeframe."

This has been my experience with cavium, bait and switch slideware and when you do finally get a sample it has so far been undesirable (octeon, TX1)

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#129

Post by wallnuss »

newman314 wrote: post #78
Twirrim wrote: post #13

One thing I think IBM has failed to grasp about POWER architecture is how to get people to use it. Lots of people in tech talk about being interested in trying it, it has a number of interesting characteristics, but the barrier for entry is fairly high. It's possible to get a POWER8 based server on Softlayer, IBM's cloud product, but not as a VM. You can get one as a bare metal server, but you can't get one for an ho…

So... I sit on the POWER Customer Advisory Board, what you have raised has certainly been something I've told IBM multiple times over the last few meetings I've had with them. I plan to continue pushing on this front.

One of the things that Nvidia quite successfully did (and Intel to some extent) is a ridiculously good academic outreach program. Making it easy (and cheap) for students and researchers to use you hardware leads to long-term buy-in.

Re: Power 9 May Dent X86 Servers: Alibaba, Google, Tencent Test IBM Systems

#130

Post by walrus01 »

shaklee3 wrote: post #127
walrus01 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the cheapest power8 server I have ever seen was probably 4x more expensive then the equivalent dual socket xeon. That info is a bit stale. But there is also a complete lack of good information online about actual dollar figures for power8 systems (a lot of "contact us for more info!"). The platform's pricing is aimed at the sort of CTO people who don't care about the cost of Oracle licensing. Not the sort of people w…

You're right in that the sticker price is much, much higher. I'm surprised you were even available to find one. IBM tends to like to keep things secret until you reach out to them, for better or for worse. I would like to see some public power 9 benchmarks to compare to xeons instead of just marketing speak as well. But I will say that your comment about $/MIPS isn't accurate. There are many people, including Oakridg…

somehow, compared to the vast amounts of money they spend on other things, I think pricing is way down the list of things that are important to organizations like LLNL, Argonne, Sandia, Idaho National Labs, PNNL, etc. Basically everything that uses HPC for DoD top secret projects.
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