BF2 puzzles me. Why are they still using A-72? Why did they cut CPU core from 16 in BF1 to 8 in BF2? The embedded ConnectX-6 is a false advertisement. It's can't do 200Gb/s in RoCEv2.
It looks like the upgrade is mainly from PCIe 3 -> PCIe 4, 25GbE -> 100GbE, and 100GbE -> 200GbE, so they simplified the product matrix by removing the 16 core CPU option.
I imagine this was a stop gap product, with most of the work spent on integrating an NVIDIA GPU with the bluefield2; it looks like from the included renders that the bluefield2x is a bluefield + Ampere, which means the bulk of offloaded work should be on the GPU and not 8 additional ARM CPU cores.
No. This is a network, security, and storage offload processor. It was developed by Mellanox before NVIDIA bought Mellanox. The idea is accelerated data packet management and programmable control for networking using Arm cores. It contains special accelerators that deal with the data packets. The point is to free up resources of the CPUs of servers in datacenters where many servers are being lashed together through ethernet. NVIDIA seems to be further adding GPU cores to the board. I don't know enough to know how those would be used. They could use it for their own base functionality such as in security algorithms, but it will also be available for customers to target with their own apps they can write for the device. But I guess they figure there are various uses for the GPU since for Bluefield-4 the GPU seems to be part of the standard package.
The DrivePX, which is now DriveAGX, I think, is an SoC, meaning that it is designed to run applications like a CPU does. It isn't designed to scale out to systems using many SoCs together, so there is no need for all the networking acceleration in the SoC. But it has image signal processors and other accelerators that help with vision and video processing.
So they both have both ARM CPU cores and NVIDIA GPU cores, but the purpose, design, and additional components are very different.
That Bluefield-4 is a veritable beast. A dual-socket Epyc 7742 is listed as about 770 SpecInt, and the Bluefield-4 is promising 1000. Assuming they are talking about INT8 tensor ops, an RTX 3080 has 238 TOPS AI, or 476 TOPS AI if sparsity is taken into account. The Bluefield-4 is promising 400 TOPS AI. The roadmap promises a 14.2X increase in CPU power and a 6.7X increase in AI power in 2 years going from the Bluefield-2X to the Bluefield-4. NVIDIA really is going all-in on this DPU thing.
JBOF based on the current BF doesn't seem to sell well. But maybe NVIDIA sees the market for computational storage in AI and thus is significantly bumping up the compute power.
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enzotiger - Monday, October 5, 2020 - link
BF2 puzzles me. Why are they still using A-72? Why did they cut CPU core from 16 in BF1 to 8 in BF2? The embedded ConnectX-6 is a false advertisement. It's can't do 200Gb/s in RoCEv2.michael2k - Monday, October 5, 2020 - link
The BF1 offered both 8 and 16 CPU designs.I imagine that the BF2 was just a mild evolution of the BF1, and you can compare the two here:
https://www.mellanox.com/related-docs/prod_adapter...
https://www.mellanox.com/files/doc-2020/pb-bluefie...
It looks like the upgrade is mainly from PCIe 3 -> PCIe 4, 25GbE -> 100GbE, and 100GbE -> 200GbE, so they simplified the product matrix by removing the 16 core CPU option.
I imagine this was a stop gap product, with most of the work spent on integrating an NVIDIA GPU with the bluefield2; it looks like from the included renders that the bluefield2x is a bluefield + Ampere, which means the bulk of offloaded work should be on the GPU and not 8 additional ARM CPU cores.
grrrgrrr - Monday, October 5, 2020 - link
Looks like rebranded tegra/drive pxYojimbo - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
No. This is a network, security, and storage offload processor. It was developed by Mellanox before NVIDIA bought Mellanox. The idea is accelerated data packet management and programmable control for networking using Arm cores. It contains special accelerators that deal with the data packets. The point is to free up resources of the CPUs of servers in datacenters where many servers are being lashed together through ethernet. NVIDIA seems to be further adding GPU cores to the board. I don't know enough to know how those would be used. They could use it for their own base functionality such as in security algorithms, but it will also be available for customers to target with their own apps they can write for the device. But I guess they figure there are various uses for the GPU since for Bluefield-4 the GPU seems to be part of the standard package.The DrivePX, which is now DriveAGX, I think, is an SoC, meaning that it is designed to run applications like a CPU does. It isn't designed to scale out to systems using many SoCs together, so there is no need for all the networking acceleration in the SoC. But it has image signal processors and other accelerators that help with vision and video processing.
So they both have both ARM CPU cores and NVIDIA GPU cores, but the purpose, design, and additional components are very different.
Yojimbo - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
oh.. and this Bluefield DPU will sit in a data center whereas the DriveAGX SoC will be in an autonomous car or the like.carcakes - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
AI chipset vs broadcom chipset, Gigabyte skues %smellsa% SERVER GPU MOBO ;p How is..PeachNCream - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
I will never understand NV's product branding. They've missed a huge chance to replace the word "Field" with "Waffle."michael2k - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
Unfortunately it was Mellanox that brought in the name 'BlueField' when NVIDIA bought Mellanox.I imagine NVIDIA would have named the product NForce, to revive their old brand, but have the N stand for 'Network'
Eliadbu - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
Give it couple of years and Nvidia will rebrand it to something else just like the Tesla and Quadro rebrands.Yojimbo - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
That Bluefield-4 is a veritable beast. A dual-socket Epyc 7742 is listed as about 770 SpecInt, and the Bluefield-4 is promising 1000. Assuming they are talking about INT8 tensor ops, an RTX 3080 has 238 TOPS AI, or 476 TOPS AI if sparsity is taken into account. The Bluefield-4 is promising 400 TOPS AI. The roadmap promises a 14.2X increase in CPU power and a 6.7X increase in AI power in 2 years going from the Bluefield-2X to the Bluefield-4. NVIDIA really is going all-in on this DPU thing.enzotiger - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
JBOF based on the current BF doesn't seem to sell well. But maybe NVIDIA sees the market for computational storage in AI and thus is significantly bumping up the compute power.ashima - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link
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