Raptor Launching Talos II Lite POWER9 Computer System At A Lower Cost

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Raptor Launching Talos II Lite POWER9 Computer System At A Lower Cost

For those that have been interested in the Talos II POWER-based system that is fully open-source down to the firmware but have been put off by its cost, Raptor Computer Systems today announced the Talos II Lite that is a slightly cut-down version of the Talos II Workstation...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raptor-Talos-2-Lite

[dbont]

Very tempting.

It looks like not all cards supported by the amdgpu driver will work? Only those on this list?

https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos_II/Hardware_Compatibility_List#Graphics_Cards

[madscientist159]

Very tempting.

It looks like not all cards supported by the amdgpu driver will work? Only those on this list?
https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos...Graphics_Cards

Timothy Pearson from Raptor here. The cards on that list are just the ones we've chosen to validate at this time, and in fact have issues if you're not running the latest Linux kernel since AMD has been rapidly upstreaming and improving the open driver stack.

For the most part, if your card is supported by radeon or amdgpu, it will either work on POWER9 now or will be made to work shortly. IBM is working on improving compatibility via firmware with both with older cards and the latest Polaris/Vega cards, so the sweet spot for price and availability, along with 100% functional drivers, is probably the R9 series of cards (e.g. the R9-290). We demoed Unreal Engine 4 on one of those cards on POWER9, so they're known to work right out of the box.

[dungeon]

Sounds like it makes sense to compare AmigaOne X5000/040 vs this on gaming performance, since price seems somewhat similar now

[bridgman]

That is some seriously good pricing.

[dungeon]

That is some seriously good pricing.

Yeah, like a Threadripper PC price range.

I already imagined AmigaOne, Threadripper and this in comparison - perf per the same price

[torsionbar28]

Oh wow, impressive pricing, same or less than a comparable Epyc/Xeon. I can get onboard with this!

[Dopefish]

Timothy Pearson from Raptor here. The cards on that list are just the ones we've chosen to validate at this time, and in fact have issues if you're not running the latest Linux kernel since AMD has been rapidly upstreaming and improving the open driver stack.

For the most part, if your card is supported by radeon or amdgpu, it will either work on POWER9 now or will be made to work shortly. IBM is working on improving compatibility via firmware with both with older cards and the latest Polaris/Vega cards, so the sweet spot for price and availability, along with 100% functional drivers, is probably the R9 series of cards (e.g. the R9-290). We demoed Unreal Engine 4 on one of those cards on POWER9, so they're known to work right out of the box.

Hey Timothy, I have a question for you. Would it be possible to get the board and stick it in any case that classifies itself as E-ATX capable? I had my eye on the following case, as it really reminds me of the venerable Apple PowerMac G5 design.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lian-Li-PC-V1000LB-Black-Aluminum-ATX-Full-Tower-Chassis/302625184616?epid=1157357785&hash=item4675dddb68

[madscientist159]

Hey Timothy, I have a question for you. Would it be possible to get the board and stick it in any case that classifies itself as E-ATX capable? I had my eye on the following case, as it really reminds me of the venerable Apple PowerMac G5 design.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lian-Li-PC-...item4675dddb68

We'll be launching the bare mainboard for sale in the next couple of weeks, so yes, that should be quite doable!

[anth]

So am I reading the specs related to storage correctly? Looks like the options are PCIe, or an SAS/SATA controller which isn't included by default.