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It is a very aggressive promotion, but I kind of wonder whether there's any chance it'll find a useful target audience. At least when we briefly looked at deplo

by jsnell 12y ago

It is a very aggressive promotion, but I kind of wonder whether there's any chance it'll find a useful target audience. At least when we briefly looked at deploying various kinds of coprocessor solutions, paying the real cost for a development unit would not have been any kind of a blocker. It's just that actually deploying a Phi in production didn't seem to make any sense for us in the end (just like GPU and ASIC based options didn't either). I would imagine that a development unit would not have been an issue for anyone else who has seriously evaluated one of these. Seems like this kind of fire sale would only help in reaching people who need lots and lots of Phis, don't realize it yet, and are susceptible to buying a piece of kit just because it's almost free. (And admittedly very cool). Also, my understanding is that this model is a 270W TDP board with passive cooling. What kind of a machine can you actually install those in?

13 12y ago
You're meant to be running these in server rack cases that already have fans in the front. Most server CPU heatsink designs take this sort of form as well[1], as there's no point in putting a tiny fan on top of the heatsink when you've got delta fans at the front blasting air through what amounts to a sealed pipe. I've dealt with GPUs of a lower TDP in a cramped environment and the amount of airflow you need is completely insane, if you ran this without aggressive cooling for more than a couple of seconds it would just ignite. [1]: https://i.imgur.com/yh2oMeh.png https://i.imgur.com/yh2oMeh.png
pkhuong 12y ago
I'm considering Phis for production workloads, and getting the test unit was never an issue. However, I also have some hobby projects that might work well on Phis. There's always the argument that personal projects are preparation for work stuff, but I'd be more comfortable running the former on my own hardware. FWIW, I think I could fit two in the 4-way workstation I left in my parents' basement ;)
zurn 12y ago
A full price board would require a procurement in many education/research organizations, but now you can just buy it through same channel as a spare laptop battery (ask your lab engineer or whatever). Also, think China or India. As for the cooling question, this is designed for rack servers that have a good front to back forced airflow. No doubt people will try various tricks at fan mounting to run in a desktop PC. See one recipe here: http://openwall.info/wiki/internal/xeon_phi http://openwall.info/wiki/internal/xeon_phi
cpks 12y ago
You'd be surprised at how much innovation comes bottom-up. Someone tries a neat, work-relevant technology for a pet weekend project, demos it, and the company adopts it. There are places with heavyweight evaluation/adoption/etc. processes, but there are more agile ones as well. This kind of firesale does pretty well for that model.

by jsnell 12y ago

13 12y ago

You're meant to be running these in server rack cases that already have fans in the front. Most server CPU heatsink designs take this sort of form as well[1], as there's no point in putting a tiny fan on top of the heatsink when you've got delta fans at the front blasting air through what amounts to a sealed pipe. I've dealt with GPUs of a lower TDP in a cramped environment and the amount of airflow you need is completely insane, if you ran this without aggressive cooling for more than a couple of seconds it would just ignite. [1]: https://i.imgur.com/yh2oMeh.png https://i.imgur.com/yh2oMeh.png

pkhuong 12y ago

I'm considering Phis for production workloads, and getting the test unit was never an issue. However, I also have some hobby projects that might work well on Phis. There's always the argument that personal projects are preparation for work stuff, but I'd be more comfortable running the former on my own hardware. FWIW, I think I could fit two in the 4-way workstation I left in my parents' basement ;)

zurn 12y ago

A full price board would require a procurement in many education/research organizations, but now you can just buy it through same channel as a spare laptop battery (ask your lab engineer or whatever). Also, think China or India. As for the cooling question, this is designed for rack servers that have a good front to back forced airflow. No doubt people will try various tricks at fan mounting to run in a desktop PC. See one recipe here: http://openwall.info/wiki/internal/xeon_phi http://openwall.info/wiki/internal/xeon_phi

cpks 12y ago

You'd be surprised at how much innovation comes bottom-up. Someone tries a neat, work-relevant technology for a pet weekend project, demos it, and the company adopts it. There are places with heavyweight evaluation/adoption/etc. processes, but there are more agile ones as well. This kind of firesale does pretty well for that model.