Parallella

For all your Raspberry Pi's, BeagleBoard's, Parallella's, ORDROID'S, TV boxes et al.
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#1 Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

Interesting times ahead!

http://www.parallella.org/board/

Overview:

Zynq-7020 Dual-core ARM A9 CPU
16 or 64-core Epiphany Multicore Accelerator
1GB RAM
MicroSD Card
2x USB 2.0
4 general purpose expansion connectors
10/100/1000 Ethernet
HDMI port
Ships with Ubuntu OS
3.4″ x 2.15″ form factor

Once completed, the 66-core version of the Parallella computer would deliver over 90 GFLOPS on a board the size of a credit card while consuming only 5 Watts under typical work loads. For certain applications, this would provide more raw performance than a high end server costing thousands of dollars and consuming 400W.
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#2

Post by Janos (retired) »

I missed out on the the first batch for kickstarter backers but I have my name down on the list for a board when they are released to the public.

They even have a BOINC sub-forum!

http://forums.parallella.org/viewforum. ... 1fc97a4b9b
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#3

Post by Janos (retired) »

I forgot to mention that these boards can be clustered together and will (probably) cost well under 100 notes each.
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#4

Post by Megacruncher »

Very interesting.
I've reserved one as well just in case it isn't too good to be true.

25GFLOPS consuming 5 watts & costing $99??????
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#5

Post by Janos (retired) »

If runs BOINC well then we are looking at something quite exciting. I am keeping a close eye on the project.
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#6

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#7

Post by Janos (retired) »

You can now order 16 core for October delivery!

http://shop.adapteva.com/collections/pa ... allella-16
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#8

Post by PinkPenguin »

Presumably the 64 core Epiphany IV version won't be available for some time yet. 8)

Need to keep an eye open for Boinc ports although one could try recompiling BOINC using the SDK and gcc compiler supplied. Used to do this when installing BOINC on Linux. Likely to be a bit painful though as I doubt this works "out of the box" as it were.
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#9

Post by Janos (retired) »

PinkPenguin wrote:Presumably the 64 core Epiphany IV version won't be available for some time yet. 8)

Yeah, looks like 64 core will be quite a while away.
PinkPenguin wrote:Need to keep an eye open for Boinc ports although one could try recompiling BOINC using the SDK and gcc compiler supplied. Used to do this when installing BOINC on Linux. Likely to be a bit painful though as I doubt this works "out of the box" as it were.
I have read that they would work out of the box on the Arm cores only but would need a lot of extra coding for them to work on the 16 core epiphany cores. However, I have also read that several of the BOINC developers are actively working on a ports. I think by the end of this year we will we looking at a new top end BOINC platform.

Interesting times ahead.
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#10

Post by Silver »

Janos wrote: I have read that they would work out of the box on the Arm cores only but would need a lot of extra coding for them to work on the 16 core epiphany cores. However, I have also read that several of the BOINC developers are actively working on a ports. I think by the end of this year we will we looking at a new top end BOINC platform.

Interesting times ahead.
If you can't get it to run on the 16 epiphany cores its surely somewhat pointless?
It does look really promising. I was having a look at their website, the cluster looks interesting assuming you could get it to run something useful - can't think what of the top of my head :wink:

You'll have to keep us posted when you get your one Janos, if they are easy enough to set up and run I might be tempted to get one/some :)
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#11

Post by Janos (retired) »

Thoughts today turned to receiving my new board. It is, probably, 5-6 weeks away but as I will be offshore until around then I will hopefully return home to find a new box on my desk!
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#12

Post by Megacruncher »

This sounds very promising.

If a hypothetical well-funded cruncher of limited programming ability were to buy one of the 4 board clusters would they at very least have an 8 core low heat cruncher almost out of the box?

If so, that, even with only an outside chance of it turning into a cool budget supercomputer, would be enough reason to place an order.
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#13

Post by Silver »

Megacruncher wrote:This sounds very promising.

If a hypothetical well-funded cruncher of limited programming ability were to buy one of the 4 board clusters would they at very least have an 8 core low heat cruncher almost out of the box?

If so, that, even with only an outside chance of it turning into a cool budget supercomputer, would be enough reason to place an order.
That was pretty much my thinking - apart from the well-funded part :(
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#14 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

The project continues to be delayed. I've been reading their forums most days but I have only just found this update on Kickstarter :cry:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ada ... sts/628018

Maybe next year?
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#15 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

Hmm, that's a bit disappointing and doesn't inspire confidence.
Fingers crossed it all comes good in the end.
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#16 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

Yes it is disappointing. I hope there are able to deliver.

I wonder if they will consider a jump from 16 cores to 1024 cores and what the prices / costs would be. At 16 or 32 cores the system will be nice but at 1024 it would be game changing for so many applications.
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#17 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

1024 cores would be somewhat awesome
Although as per the previous posts if they aren't being used they wouldn't be much help, although you'd hope that with that many cores available projects would spend the time to port programmes through
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#18 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

Latest Update

Delivery schedule:

December 2nd: 200 Parallella PCB boards back from factory
December 11th: Assembled boards back from contract manufacturer
December 15th: Send out ~200 boards to backers
January 1st: All PCB fabs back
January 31st: All boards shipped to backers


Kickstarter Post Updates:

December 4th: Picture of the new fabs
December 6th: "Announcement"
December 15th: "Live" fully featured Parallella demo bringup video
January 1st: Fab delivery post
January 8-31: Weekly shipping status updates

Source:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ada ... yone/posts
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#19 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

Hmm. Does that mean your now almost 8 weeks on from when you thought you were 5-6 weeks away from delivery, to now find out your around 10 weeks away?

Sounds like parallela is still in a shambles. Hope they come through eventually as I had hoped that a cluster of these would power me through the ranks....
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#20 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

Silver wrote:Hope they come through eventually as I had hoped that a cluster of these would power me through the ranks....
Same :)
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#21 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

Janos wrote:
Silver wrote:Hope they come through eventually as I had hoped that a cluster of these would power me through the ranks....
Same :)
Not sure you need that much help :wink:
Although I suppose it's never enough..... :D
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#22 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

I need all the help I can get ;)
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#23 Re: Parallella

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#24 Re: Parallella

Post by PinkPenguin »

Hopefully it won't be long now... :)
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#25 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

Looks like they're slowly getting there. Fingers crossed for the new year.
I'm still up for a parallela cluster if they do the business, or numbers as the case may be :D
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#26 Re: Parallella

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"Happiness can be defined as: a geek with non-work related code to write, no distractions and no deadline." - Janos
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#27 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

I got a box today :)
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#28 Re: Parallella

Post by Alez »

Jammy so and so..... :P
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#29 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

Just need to get it to boot...
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#30 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

My board is up and running. Currently crunching on the 2 ARM cores only and waiting for projects to support the Epiphany cores.

Not expecting the ARM cores to be particularly fast but every little helps :)
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#31 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

Nice one, here's hoping that it's the start of a fruitful journey.
Just hope it doesn't take someone too long to port a project to the epiphany chip!
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#32 Re: Parallella

Post by keithsloan52 »

Janos wrote:My board is up and running. Currently crunching on the 2 ARM cores only and waiting for projects to support the Epiphany cores.

Not expecting the ARM cores to be particularly fast but every little helps :)
What values does the benchmark that BOINC runs at start up show for the ARM 9 ?

These are the values I get on Raspberry Pi and Cubieboard 2

Code: Select all

                                	Raspberry Pi	    CubieBoard 2      Desktop
Floating Point Operations            237.89               456.98          2049.30
Integer Operations	                955.20              1718.00          5868.06
Float Ratio to Pi	                   1                    1.92             8.61
Integer Ratio to Pi	                 1                    1.80             6.14
Float Ratio to Cubie		                                  1                4.48
Integer Ratio to Cubie		                                1                3.42
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#33 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

Code: Select all

11/03/2014 21:18:13 |  | Benchmark results:
11/03/2014 21:18:13 |  | Number of CPUs: 2
11/03/2014 21:18:13 |  | 343 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
11/03/2014 21:18:13 |  | 1510 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
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#34 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

From a BOINC point of view the Parallella board has not taken off. I had such high hopes when it was first advertised but the amount of memory per core is just not enough for BOINC style client apps,

I am going to get my two boards back online and crunching for http://supercomputer.io.
Andreas Olofsson wrote:Hi there,

If you own a Parallella please help us build the most efficient virtual supercomputer in the world this week!

Who, what, where, when, why?

http://supercomputer.io

Thanks to the amazing folks at resin.io there is now a containerized application deployment platform for the Parallella board enabling super easy workload scheduling for a fleet of thousands of Parallella across the globe with the push of a button.

We intend to offer "supercomputer.io" capacity for free to academic researchers working in the field of machine learning. Researchers at Google, Facebook, Baidu, and Microsoft are making steady progress with deep learning algorithms thanks to virtually limitless resources. What if this kind of computing power could be available to all researchers for FREE?

If we can get 1,000 boards connected to supercomputer.io, researchers would have a 18,000 CPU supercomputer at their disposal, putting it in the same class as some of the computers on the Top500 while consuming less than 5 KW. With 2 ARM A9 cores, the Xilinx FPGA logic, and 16 Epiphany CPU cores, this would arguably be the most efficient supercomputer on the planet!

The first live image processing demo of this new virtual machine will be run at the Parallella Technical Conference in Tokyo this Saturday.

How to Help?

Based on conversation with countless Parallella owners over the last year, I can tell you that "time" is a scarce a commodity as ever. If you haven't turned on your Parallella yet, PLEASE help us put it to good use! Too much time and money was spent for the Parallellas to gather dust in some desk drawer. Let's at least build something useful out of it.

Download the special resin.io image from http://supercomputer.io
Burn an SD card
Power up your Parallella and connect it to your router. We take care of the rest.

<snip of remaining general email content>
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#35 Re: Parallella

Post by Silver »

Sounds interesting, keep us posted Janos.
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#36 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

864 cores online at the last glance. :)
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#37 Re: Parallella

Post by Janos (retired) »

1458 now
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#38 Re: Parallella

Post by scole of TSBT »

What project you crunching with them and what is the performance like? Or is it being used for the article above?

Never mind :oops: I get it now. 1458 total cores being contributed by all volunteers like Janos. Any idea what they crunch?
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