CPU compatibility with Xenon Phi ?

[Hanif_M_]

I am having hard time finding information on CPU compatibility with Xenon Phi's, if there is any.

Will the Xeon Phi 31S1P and the MPSS 3.4 work with i7 4820k ? Is there any restriction on CPU ?

Also, the Read me file for Windows of the driver says that the currently supported OS are:

Microsoft Windows* 7 Enterprise SP1 (64-bit)

Microsoft Windows* 8/8.1 Enterprise (64-bit)

Microsoft Windows* Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit)

Microsoft Windows* Server 2012 (64-bit)

Microsoft Windows* Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)

However, on this forum https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/508601, there are some users using Windows 8.1 Pro without any problem. So, I'm unsure whether using the 8.1 or 8.1 Pro makes any difference for the card.

I appreciate your help.

[TimP]

The more critical question is whether your BIOS supports memory mapped I/O above 4GB, as evidenced by a BIOS setup option for that purpose.  If your motherboard supports Xeon Phi, the manufacturer would surely document that.

[Robert_F_2]

I've got 2 on order so I'm clearly not an expert but... warning barely edited back of napkin plan..  criticism welcome...

Good discussion on hacking together a low end phi compute node here.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/blog/2013/08/06/Will-your-motherboard-work-with-Intel-Xeon-Phi-490/

The accessing ram aboved 4GB part and having bios support seems to be the critical part of putting the mic's on an lga2011 board.   It's spec'ed for an e5 2600 series cpu but others have i7'ed.   The sub 3.0ghz 4-8 core cpus are not completely out of reach for price.

I'm shooting for 2 - 6 core'ish e5's on z9pe-d8 ws or a workstation board of similar ilk.   I think you want a minimum of  40 pcie lanes for a single lga 2011 chip if you want 1 mic and 80 pcie lanes for  a couple of Mic's, a couple gpgpus,  and a raid card.  It seem like a dual processor board with the 80 lanes makes more sense.   Even a single mic and a decent video card is 32 lanes.   

...I'm hoping to play hybrid development leveraging the mic's for the loops and having the mic's use the gpu kernels so I'm guessing that bandwidth on the bus may be annoying if there is contention (IF).   

Used qdr infiniband seems cheap for off node storage (token ring - unless I can find a bargain basement switch) and a raid 0 (m1015 ibm 8 port card - bios hack) and a bunch of on sale ssds (8' ish) or one of those cheap  pcie m.2  x4 cards with at least 2 sticks although 4 would be nicer.    Nas off node, a bunch of vm's on the nas for utility and a decent PC for development/productivity work.

64GB of ddr3 because ddr4 and ecc is expensive and my basement supercomputer is going to be expensive even with $200 mic's, fleabay hardware and hand me downs from friends with server rooms and data centres.

Phis are intended for rack mount with lots of fan to cool them.  Cardboard and duct tape is your friend

All my data is entirely disposable and this intended to be a development sandbox.  I'm hoping to learn a lot about parallel development and machine learning.

.... If anyone at intel, nvidia or amd would like to help me fill my basement with hardware feel free to pm me :)   I have a nice spot for couple of Teslas or FirePros.

[Andre_S_1]

Tim Prince wrote:

The more critical question is whether your BIOS supports memory mapped I/O above 4GB, as evidenced by a BIOS setup option for that purpose.  If your motherboard supports Xeon Phi, the manufacturer would surely document that.

It wasn't mentioned, but the motherboard will be a P9X79 WS, which Asus specifically says that supports Xeon Phi 3100 series.

[Frances_R_Intel]

There is a difference between what is officially supported and what might work for you. As you noted, some people have been using Windows 8.1 Pro, even though it is not explicitly listed in the user's guide. I don't know of any case where that has been a problem. So if that is what you want to use, I'd say go ahead.

As far as the processor is concerned, the officially supported processor is an Intel Xeon processor. It appears that some people may have successfully used an Intel Core i7 processor. I can't speak to how well that worked for them. You might want to search this forum to find someone who has used that processor and use the "Send Author A Message" link to write them a note asking them about their experience before you decide that is what you want to do. Be sure to ask what operating system they are using and if they needed to recompile any of the MPSS code. 

As others have pointed out, some things you can't get away with not having - 

You need an x16 PCIe slot for the coprocessor (not an x8 with mechanical support for 16) but you will want to have more PCIe lanes than that to accommodate video cards, etc.

Your BIOS must support  memory mapped I/O greater than 4GB.

If you are using a passively cooled coprocessor card, such as 31S1P, you will need to make sure you provide sufficient cooling. There are some interesting forum threads discussing ways to do this. This is essential.

[Loc_N_Intel]

Hi Hanif,

There are three versions of Windows 8.1: Basic, Pro and Enterprise. Windows 8.1 Basic is for home users while the Pro and Enterprise versions are for business. Thus, business features are added in Pro and Enterprise versions. As far as MPSS concern, these three versions of Windows 8.1 are not different, so you should not see any difference when working with the coprocessors.   

[Hanif_M_]

Thank you everyone! 

It seems Windows Pro should be fine; and Xenon CPUs are a safer choice.

I assume that I can even use the lower end ones such as "Xenon E-1620 v2" ?

[Frances_R_Intel]

I think the Intel Xeon E51620 v2 will work but there are a couple of things I want to check with someone more knowledgeable than I before I say yes for sure. 

[jimdempseyatthecove]

Hanif,

I use an E5-2620v2, which is a dual socket version of the E5-1620. I am using it in a single socket motherboard that supports the large block addressing for PCIe (devices with an address window larger than 4GB). I chose the 2620 in the event that I would switch to the dual socket motherboard (ASUS Z9PE0D8 WS). 

The E5-1620v2 should be fine, but your motherboard selection will be critical. The one I am using is an ASUS P9X79 WS. As happy as I am with this setup, today I would select a motherboard that can accept the v3 cpus. This requires a socket 2011-3 (as opposed to 2011).

For single socket, a good economy/performance CPU would be the E5-1650v3 Haswell-EP. It is 3.5GHz Six Core and of the newer Haswell design.

Post your success story here...

Jim Dempsey

[Robert_F_2]

jimdempseyatthecove wrote:

Hanif,

I use an E5-2620v2, which is a dual socket version of the E5-1620. I am using it in a single socket motherboard that supports the large block addressing for PCIe (devices with an address window larger than 4GB). I chose the 2620 in the event that I would switch to the dual socket motherboard (ASUS Z9PE0D8 WS). 

The E5-1620v2 should be fine, but your motherboard selection will be critical. The one I am using is an ASUS P9X79 WS. As happy as I am with this setup, today I would select a motherboard that can accept the v3 cpus. This requires a socket 2011-3 (as opposed to 2011).

For single socket, a good economy/performance CPU would be the E5-1650v3 Haswell-EP. It is 3.5GHz Six Core and of the newer Haswell design.

Post your success story here...

Jim Dempsey

I've been watching fleabay for a ASUS Z9PE0D8 WS  ( The number of full length  slots on this board is pretty compelling - mics, gpu, infiniband use up slots pretty fast even if there are only 80 real pci slots to play with ).    Some of used the dell/lenova/et al workstation boards have 4 - 16x.   I may break down and buy the motherboard retail as the warrantee and things actually working together seems to be an issue occasionally.

Is there a generally recommended/known to work workstation board at a decent price point out there that will allow for the v3 chips out there.   I'm shopping the junk market so any suggestions are appreciated.

thanks,

robert

[Hanif_M_]

Thanks Jim,

Do you have an suggestion for  a motherboard that supports v3 and Xenon Phi ? I cannot find any motherboard on Asus website that explicitly says is supports Xenon Phi and it is v3.

Thanks,

Hanif 

[Frances_R_Intel]

The list of known usable E5 processors which I received from someone I trust is:

• Processors he has personally tried:
• X5680 ok;
• E5-2600 ok
• E5-2600v2 ok
• E5-2600v3 ok
• Processors another trustworthy individual has told him will work:
• E5-1600 ok
• E5-1600v2 ok
• E5-1600v3 ok

However, with the single socket processors, it is extremely dependent on the motherboard. If I had to guess which boards would work, I would suggest going to ark.intel.com and looking up both the processor you are interested in and the coprocessor you have, then selecting a board that shows up in the compatible hardware lists for both. Unfortunately there is no compatible hardware list for the 31S1 card; you will need to approximate that from the other cards. If you want to try a board from another company such as ASUS, I would suggest trying to match the characteristics of the Intel board as closely as possible. But regardless of which board you select, I would buy it from someplace that will allow returns if it doesn't work. 

Beyond that, I would listen to Jim Dempsey. He is a voice of experience.

[jimdempseyatthecove]

Robert,

On the ASUS P9X79-WS motherboard I had an issue with the motherboard BIOS firmware version. The version it shipped with had problems making it through POST. The latest version (at that time was 4404) locked up without recognizing the CPU when the Xeon Phi installed. It took a long time of searching around on the internet to find out BIOS version 4306 was the one that worked. A lot of time has passed since I updated the Firmware, as to if the 4306 is the one to use or not, I cannot say.

FWIW the customer support personnel, and his manager had no clue as to what a Xeon Phi was. They kept insisting it was a video card.

The ASUS X99-E WS (Socket 2011-3) user's manual page 3-56 states:

Above 4G Decoding [Disabled]
This item allows you to decode the 64-bit capable devices above 4G address space. Ensure that your system supports 64-bit PCI decoding.
Configuration options: [Disabled][Enabled]

This would be the option you would set to [Enable]

*** Disclaimer, I haven't used this board with Xeon Phi. You will need that set to Enable, if the board indeed works with the Xeon Phi
*** You may need to experiment with different versions of the firmware as I did with the P9X79-WS

Jim Dempsey

[Robert_F_2]

The Z10PE-D8 WS is spec'ed for the mic, v3 e5's and has the same layout as the z9.   Unlike the Z9PE-D8 WS however, the Z10 does not appear to allow for DDR3.   So there is an added expense to the V3 board and e5 V3 cpu.   DDR4 is still very expensive.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Socket2011-R3/Z10PE-D8_WS/QVL/Z10PE-D8_WS_device_QVL__150107.pdf