Unboxing Intel's PROTOTYPE GPU

[nicklmg]

Buy Intel CPUs on Amazon: http://geni.us/809gd

 

We got our hands on a PROTOTYPE video card from Intel. But does it actually do anything?...

 

 

[Docretier]

So LMG has one, does this mean a video will come out for it?

[FAQBytes]

Interesting.

 

[Silentprototipe]

Wait just now it got released?  But yeah someone better get the special sauce drivers 

[Nicnac]

that was quick!

 

Edit: Oh, nvm it's an old project...

[FAQBytes]

@nicklmg @LinusTech

The issue you're having is a motherboard one, as it needs a compatible BIOS.

 

I don't remember directly without re-watching other videos which board you are using.

There are some ASUS LGA-2011 (/-3) compatible motherboards, and some ASRock ones with a special BIOS as well. 

https://streamhpc.com/blog/2015-08-01/xeon-phi-knights-corner-compatible-motherboards/

 

Potential software (driver) source.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-manycore-platform-software-stack-mpss#wn38rel

[samcool55]

Linus says at 2:15 it's Intel's first and only dedicated graphics card. Not exactly correct

Intel did make one before, only 1, back in 1998. They killed it very quickly because it was a disaster but you could actually buy an intel graphics card a few decades ago.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/1288/i740

[Blissed]

Could someone of the staff/linus upload high res images of the pcb front and back? would be very nice

[hellspawncy]

Try a board that does not have UEFI, like boards with a z68 chip set and any second generation core cpu(i7-2700K, i5-2500K, etc)

[indrora]

12 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Intel did make one before, only 1, back in 1998. They killed it very quickly because it was a disaster but you could actually buy an intel graphics card a few decades ago.

Aaaa the pedant in me yelled about this too internally. Before then you had the i750 chipset that was really only used in a few consumer situations. 

 

I had a machine with one of these in it. It was OK for like, CAD stuff. Maybe. 

 

[speedbeastxx]

Try different motherboards that work with uncommon hardware.

[Hunter259]

6 minutes ago, hellspawncy said:

Try a board that does not have UEFI, like boards with a z68 chip set and any second generation core cpu(i7-2700K, i5-2500K, etc)

First gen core would be the most likely to work. Sandy Bridge didn't release until 2011. Something like an i7 990x is probably sitting around somewhere.

[CoalitionGaming]

Yeah i'd imagine a motherboard from the era when the graphics card was under development would have the best chance at working. And if it has selectable PCI-E revision to run under, manually set it to 2.0 or even 1.0. I had a motherboard that had the PCI-E revision setting on auto and would not boot with a newer GPU (GTX 970), so i put the previous GPU i was using in (GTX 770), went into BIOS, set the PCI-E mode to 2.0, put the GTX 970 back in, and voila. Booted.

[Kamjam21xx]

I want more players in the gpu market.

[DebeliMajmun]

Did you try Older Hardware,Or a board without an UEFI like a z68 board?

 

[deadbeef]

All characters and events depicted in this post are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All images are renders.

 

Linus,

KNC A1s are never intended to be videocards, I think the fact that you have it with some video outputs may just indicate that those ones are either refurbished ones with old PCBs or they just made it out of inertia.

 

I am unable to find my old pictures with real Larabee which as far as I can remember could work only in text mode out-of-box, but I am pretty sure they had black shrouds. Next gen has metal shrouds and then blue ones. So, you are having almost production grade board, you can download the drivers on official Intel site, but they are for calculations only.

 

Here are photos of KNF E0 which was the first add in card Intel admited to be a co-processor, not a videocard They are taken in the early 2011.

 

[deadbeef]

2 hours ago, FAQBytes said:

Potential software (driver) source.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-manycore-platform-software-stack-mpss#wn38rel

That is correct driver/software, but you need to check if it has firmware for A* revisions as they are incompatible with B* revisions.

[FAQBytes]

2 minutes ago, deadbeef said:

That is correct driver/software, but you need to check if it has firmware for A* revisions as they are incompatible with B* revisions.

Good to know I was at least on the right track. Good to have someone who has experience working with them rather than just theoretical stuff for businesses.

[LAwLz]

How about plugging the card into a computer with a normal GPU, and see if the computer detects the card at all?

For all we know, the card might be dead. Or maybe look up the code the motherboard spits out. Seems like those would be step 1 and 2 in troubleshooting.

[pmccall2]

2 hours ago, FAQBytes said:

@nicklmg @LinusTech

The issue you're having is a motherboard one, as it needs a compatible BIOS.

 

I don't remember directly without re-watching other videos which board you are using.

There are some ASUS LGA-2011 (/-3) compatible motherboards, and some ASRock ones with a special BIOS as well. 

https://streamhpc.com/blog/2015-08-01/xeon-phi-knights-corner-compatible-motherboards/

 

Potential software (driver) source.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-manycore-platform-software-stack-mpss#wn38rel

Don't come here often but came here after seeing the video to say this. 

 

It's likely that the device has a bios which does not work with UEFI (UEFI and BIOS are different things), there should be an option to enable legacy support for devices with non-uefi compatible firmware. Secure boot must also be disabled for this.

 

PCIe spec shouldn't matter, it should be forward/backward compatible without any changes to either devices firmware.

[OmegaOuter]

Knights Corned required special motherboard with custom firmware, plus enable some settings in the BIOS to allow the card to access more PCIe lanes. I believe Intel Crown Pass family with dual Xeon v5 were the only ones compatibles with KNC engineering samples.

 

None of the KNC engineering samples could be used as video cards. Instead, they had embbedded firmware to run a custom Linux distribution wich was pushed to the card while the driver was being loaded. This driver also creates a Vritual Network interface to the card, so it can be SSHed from the host machine OS.

 

I'd recomend you to use a machine with Red Hat 6 or similar as the Host OS, instead of Windows plus the drivers that were posted before.

 

[Kamjam21xx]

There will probably be a revision video now.

[TheRandomness]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

How about plugging the card into a computer with a normal GPU, and see if the computer detects the card at all?

For all we know, the card might be dead. Or maybe look up the code the motherboard spits out. Seems like those would be step 1 and 2 in troubleshooting.

I'm seeing a lot of repeats from the floatplane thread

[King_of_Oz]

BBBBUT CAN IT MINE????

[WildCat444]

Try the bga re-flow like you did with your 780 ti if nothing else works such as using alternative motherboards like other posts mention. Nothing more to lose right? It was mentioned that the card was found in a kind of scrap heap. If that is the case it could have been jostled or slightly bent enough to separate the bga. Just a thought. Really interesting all of the options that card gave to developers. Wish development was kept up better and put more effort into a card like the one shown in the video.