A CrowdSupply funding campaign has started for Raptor Engineering's Talos WorkStation.
For a pledge of $4100, should this campaign succeed, you will receive a Talos motherboard and a cpu heatsink without Power8 processor.
The entire workstation is available, but the cost is $18,000.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation

[ Edited by Jim 14.10.2016 - 19:34 ]

> For a pledge of $4100, should this campaign succeed, you will receive
> a Talos motherboard and a cpu heatsink without Power8 processor.

And the POWER8 CPU starts at 1135 USD for the 8-core 3.0 GHz variant:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/power8-cpus

This adds up to a minimum of 5235 USD for board + CPU.

Related links:
http://www.raptorcs.com
https://www.setphaserstostun.org/power8/

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Waaaay to much for a desktop computer. What a shame.

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Yep, the last time I remember someone paying that kind of cash was decades ago when a former employer laid out $5000 for a DEC Rainbow system.
At this point, there are no Power8 systems that would make a sensible single user computer.

Sounds like the X5000 will be an el-cheapo machine for people who cannot afford a Talos Mainboard + CPU.

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That is a good comparison.
Hopefully, in time either the price of Power 8 systems will fall, or somebody will develop a Power 8/9 derivative aimed a desktop applications.

Either way, since Freescale commits to long production cycles, even if they no longer focus on PPC cpus, the current e5500 and e6500 based processors should be available for several more years.


[ Edited by Jim 15.10.2016 - 21:19 ]

> Freescale [...] no longer focus on PPC cpus

...or anything else. NXP on the other hand... ;-)

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Gee.. I hadn't noticed that name changed Andreas.... ;)
Are we feeling particularly snarky, or just normally snarky?

in any case, NXP would not appear to have a future in PPCs.
Long live the Power processor.

@Jim
The only time IBM downscaled POWER was the G5, rather unlikely to be ever repeated.

>> Hopefully, [...] somebody will develop a Power 8/9 derivative aimed a desktop
>> applications.

> The only time IBM downscaled POWER was the G5, rather unlikely to be ever
> repeated.

"Somebody" doesn't have to be IBM.

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Exactly!
In fact I wouldn't expect this from IBM, rather its more likely from one of their Chinese licensees that might like an inroad into PC supply and production.

> For a pledge of $4100, should this campaign succeed, you will receive a
> Talos motherboard and a cpu heatsink without Power8 processor.

Board price has been lowered to 3700 USD. Minimum price for board + CPU is now 4835 USD.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation/updates/new-lower-pricing

Gee, they would only have to lower that another $600 and included the cpu to get to the price that I might have considered (and that was already a bit high).

> A CrowdSupply funding campaign has started for Raptor Engineering's Talos WorkStation.

It failed:

"Talos winds down and development resources are being allocated to other projects [...]. [...] We will not be continuing development of the Talos systems [...]. [...] we may be starting up a new non-crowdfunded platform based on OpenPOWER through Raptor Computing Systems in the near future"
https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation/updates/the-state-of-owner-controlled-computing-as-talos-winds-down

No wonder. The original estimated price was fair and good. I would have bought it for this price. The final estimated price was just ridiculous.

I am quite impressed they managed to raise close to 500,000 USD in funding at all considering that their premium pricing level is out of reach for a lot of enthusiasts and that the engineering company does not appear to list any comparable product development as a reference on their website, which might raise doubts about their engineering as well as administrative qualifications (complying with international regulations, etc.).

As a potential supporter, you are far more likely to support an 'unproven' team and to ignore questions about warranty or other legal issues if your financial risk is relatively low, which is why so many low-cost ARM mainboards and devices have been successfully funded via crowdsourcing. Seven thousand dollar servers, on the other hand, are in a totally different ballpark.

Interestingly enough, with a funding total of five hundred thousand dollars and fewer than four hundred fifty backers, the average financial pledge for this project is a little over one thousand dollars so substantially below the three thousand and seven hundred dollars needed to purchase the cheapest offered hardware option. Put differently, a large majority of backers pledged a lot of money for the development of a hardware product although each of them was not willing or able to commit to buying at least one unit of said hardware.

Again, this is quite remarkable.

What I found less remarkable - or rather, remarkable in a highly negative way - were their attempts to explain the differences between libre hardware and libre software development models, which are real and worthy of discussion, by arguing that, unlike any "centrally planned" product developments, only chaotic / uncontrolled / forked and then reforked libre software projects produce optimal "free market" outcomes...

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That was my point in several exchanges with Raptor representatives last week.

But the part that troubled me was their pursuit of this project without informing or involving IBM.
IBM currently only sells to companies it qualifies.

Why would you go to the trouble of designing a complex motherboard without the funding to produce it and without exploring whether or not you could secure the parts for it?

Might be of interest - Raptor are going to launch a Talos II workstation, this time it's POWER9-based, no crowd funding, seemingly in cooperation with IBM and proposedly less expensive (klick, klick)

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Dual Power9, interesting.
But affordable?
I have my doubts, as 'competitively priced' would still be damned high.

> Talos II workstation, this time it's POWER9-based

Details:

Board only
Board + single CPU
Board + dual CPU
Desktop
Workstation
Server
POWER9 CPU (4 cores)

I quite like that it's only a quad-core CPU (so far thought POWER9 will be 12-core minimum) and that there'll be the option to have only a single CPU.


Edit: added Desktop system

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 17.09.2017 - 23:45 ]

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I missed that.
Puts me off completely.
Why would I spend that kind of money to have half the cores I have on my cheap X64 system?

OR, is this really the case?

Power9 supports two threading options.
SMT4 which features four threads per core, and SMT8 which features eight threads per core.

SO, is the processor quoted really a four core?
In which case it would likely support either 16 or 32 threads simultaneously.
Hey! Sounds good so far.

OR, is this 'four core' processor actually a single core supporting SMT4?
Not so good.

I'll leave this to better researchers to figure out.

But either way, since the pricing of these systems is likely to be obscene, I'd still favor porting to X64, where a 16 thread Ryzen based cpu would no doubt be much cheaper.

> Puts me off completely. Why would I spend that kind of money to have
> half the cores I have on my cheap X64 system?

Two times four SMT4 cores means as much as 32 hardware threads.

> OR, is this really the case? Power9 supports two threading options. SMT4
> which features four threads per core, and SMT8 which features eight threads
> per core. SO, is the processor quoted really a four core?

I'm (positively) surprised myself that a 4-core POWER9 seems to exist, but I find it unlikely that the Raptor people are confusing cores and threads (per core).

> In which case it would likely support either 16 or 32 threads simultaneously.
> Hey! Sounds good so far.

Weren't you put off by this just moments ago? ;-)

> OR, is this 'four core' processor actually a single core supporting SMT4?
> Not so good.

Considering I'm surprised by the quad-core variant, I find it extremely unlikely that IBM produces something like a single-core POWER9.

>Considering I'm surprised by the quad-core variant, I find it extremely unlikely that IBM produces something like a single-core POWER9.

That was my assumption as well, that we were dealing with a 16 thread cpu (at least, unless they are SMT8 derived), so yes, two processors would equal 32 threads - and WHY would you need that much power outside of server applications? I could see sticking with the single cpu version.

So no, I'm not TOO put off, BUT...

Let's see what Raptor prices these at.

Because they really scaled the pricing up in their last project.

BTW - Four core Power9 cpus didn't really surprise me, as there were four core Power8 cpus.
Although IBM doesn't seem interested in promoting the lower end of the Power lineup.

Pity, because these cpus could make the basis for a nice open platform.

> WHY would you need that much power outside of server applications?

To make up for the fact that this is only half the cores you have on your cheap X64 system ;-)

> I could see sticking with the single cpu version.

Yes, that's the bottom line of my comment #20 :-)

'Cheap'? I was always taught to say 'inexpensive' (when selling a cheap item).