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Author Topic: Raspberry Pi $25 PC - Could we run GPUs/FPGAs on this?  (Read 14931 times)
norulezapply (OP)
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December 23, 2011, 10:44:09 PM
Last edit: December 23, 2011, 11:10:06 PM by norulezapply
 #1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16316439 <-- link to the article.

The new £16/$25 computer that runs Linux. Could these be modified to run GPUs/FPGAs off?

I think FPGAs would be feasible but I'm guessing it's a no to GPUs since there's no PCI-express I assume.

NOTE: The Raspberry Pi would only getwork and pass it to FPGAs/GPUs for mining. I didn't mean using a Raspberry Pi for hashing.

Post your thoughts below!

(PS: it plays Quake 3 Arena Shocked )
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December 23, 2011, 11:07:32 PM
 #2

Based on previous ARM benchmarks of similar processors, I doubt this would even hit 1 Mhash/sec. So I'm guessing no.
norulezapply (OP)
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December 23, 2011, 11:09:19 PM
 #3

Based on previous ARM benchmarks of similar processors, I doubt this would even hit 1 Mhash/sec. So I'm guessing no.
I didn't mean mining directly from the board.

I meant connecting FPGAs/GPUs to it to do the actual mining. The Raspberry Pi would just be used to getwork and submit hashes for the connected FPGAs/GPUs.
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December 24, 2011, 01:49:52 AM
 #4

I would think they should work fine to control an FPGA farm.
Heres the official site:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

and the FAQ Section

http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs
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December 24, 2011, 02:05:01 AM
 #5

I see you need the model B, $35 to get ethernet. Stil not at all a bad deal. I did not see directly but do we know if it is a single or dual USB ports?
I like the micro usb for power concept. pretty nifty. Some things to note on it here;
"Model B owners using networking and high-current USB peripherals will require a supply which can source 700mA (many phone chargers meet this requirement). Model A owners with powered USB devices will be able to get away with a much lower current capacity (300mA feels like a reasonable safety margin)."

If you're not excited by the idea of being an early adopter 'now', then you should come back in three or four years and either tell us "Told you it'd never work!" or join what should, by then, be a much more stable and easier-to-use system.
- GA

It is being worked on by smart people.  -DamienBlack
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December 24, 2011, 02:15:47 AM
 #6

I has a single USB 2.0 port on it.  So you will need to get a USB hub for periphreals.  I would suggest a powered USB hub.  Yeah I just realized you need the $35 model to get ethernet, but no biggy.
The did say it supported wifi with a USB dongle.
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December 24, 2011, 02:32:51 AM
 #7

I see you need the model B, $35 to get ethernet. Stil not at all a bad deal. I did not see directly but do we know if it is a single or dual USB ports?
I like the micro usb for power concept. pretty nifty. Some things to note on it here;
"Model B owners using networking and high-current USB peripherals will require a supply which can source 700mA (many phone chargers meet this requirement). Model A owners with powered USB devices will be able to get away with a much lower current capacity (300mA feels like a reasonable safety margin)."

Just use a powered hub and it is a non-issue.

Interesting idea.  $25 computer + $20 12 port hub = ability to drive up to 12 FPGA boards.  Kinda crazy to be driving thousands of dollars of computing power from a $25 computer board but I like it.
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December 24, 2011, 02:35:03 AM
 #8

For those who are wondering here is a shot of the computing board.

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December 24, 2011, 02:38:42 AM
 #9

more pr0n pls  Cheesy

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December 24, 2011, 02:46:32 AM
 #10

more pr0n pls  Cheesy

LOL.  check the FAQ page link I posted a few posts back in this thread.  They have a lot of Raspberry porn in there... lol
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December 24, 2011, 03:04:39 AM
 #11

I saw this on the BBC last night and went to check it out. I thought the same - could use as a FPGA manager. But also I think someone could design a 4 FPGA card daughterboard that mates directly onto this ones GPIO connector and controls them thru that. No need for USB on the FPGAs and hubs and all that. Even less cost, just FPGAs and power regulators.

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December 24, 2011, 03:08:25 AM
 #12

I saw this on the BBC last night and went to check it out. I thought the same - could use as a FPGA manager. But also I think someone could design a 4 FPGA card daughterboard that mates directly onto this ones GPIO connector and controls them thru that. No need for USB on the FPGAs and hubs and all that. Even less cost, just FPGAs and power regulators.

Interesting.

It is too bad even USB 3.0 only support 5W.  If it supported more an alternate idea would be FPGA boards which were bus powered.  Firewire supports up to 45W per port but do idea how costly firewire interface is.
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December 24, 2011, 03:57:55 AM
 #13

I saw this on the BBC last night and went to check it out. I thought the same - could use as a FPGA manager. But also I think someone could design a 4 FPGA card daughterboard that mates directly onto this ones GPIO connector and controls them thru that. No need for USB on the FPGAs and hubs and all that. Even less cost, just FPGAs and power regulators.

Interesting.

It is too bad even USB 3.0 only support 5W.  If it supported more an alternate idea would be FPGA boards which were bus powered.  Firewire supports up to 45W per port but do idea how costly firewire interface is.
I think it's quite feasible at a hobbyist level. I've made cheap home made PCBs before (with a 256 pin Spartan 3 on board) and potentially something like this could work. And though it may not be best practices I know it's possible to solder the BGA type chips to a PCB at home because I've seen the locals where I live do it on the street with cell-phone repairs. I'm not in a position right now to pursue this myself but I have a SMD workstation and have done FPGA projects in the past. You could attach 4 FPGAs to this Raspberry for not much more than the $175 per chip cost. That would be awesome.

(only because it's such a minimal fpga design - no external high speed signal routing)

I have to say I can't believe they put composite video on this thing. Someone has a whimsical attachment to the past. Just waiting to see Pong on this.

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December 24, 2011, 04:28:17 AM
 #14

more pr0n pls  Cheesy

LOL.  check the FAQ page link I posted a few posts back in this thread.  They have a lot of Raspberry porn in there... lol

thanks, missed it somehow

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December 24, 2011, 05:07:16 PM
 #15

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16316439 <-- link to the article.

The new £16/$25 computer that runs Linux. Could these be modified to run GPUs/FPGAs off?

I think FPGAs would be feasible but I'm guessing it's a no to GPUs since there's no PCI-express I assume.

NOTE: The Raspberry Pi would only getwork and pass it to FPGAs/GPUs for mining. I didn't mean using a Raspberry Pi for hashing.

Post your thoughts below!

(PS: it plays Quake 3 Arena Shocked )

you are tottaly right. It would only be a great controler for USB connected FPGA's.
It has no pci-E.
Although I have thought about clustering them and running xen on the cluster.

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December 24, 2011, 05:15:56 PM
 #16

I have to say I can't believe they put composite video on this thing. Someone has a whimsical attachment to the past. Just waiting to see Pong on this.

Glad they did, it will be quite usefull to connect it to my 15 year's old, 20" still in perfect shape, TV!!! Cheesy

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norulezapply (OP)
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December 24, 2011, 05:18:13 PM
 #17

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16316439 <-- link to the article.

The new £16/$25 computer that runs Linux. Could these be modified to run GPUs/FPGAs off?

I think FPGAs would be feasible but I'm guessing it's a no to GPUs since there's no PCI-express I assume.

NOTE: The Raspberry Pi would only getwork and pass it to FPGAs/GPUs for mining. I didn't mean using a Raspberry Pi for hashing.

Post your thoughts below!

(PS: it plays Quake 3 Arena Shocked )

you are tottaly right. It would only be a great controler for USB connected FPGA's.
It has no pci-E.
Although I have thought about clustering them and running xen on the cluster.

I'm also glad they added composite video to it. Not everyone has HDMI monitors you know!

How would you go about clustering these things together anyway?
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December 24, 2011, 05:24:28 PM
 #18

I have to say I can't believe they put composite video on this thing. Someone has a whimsical attachment to the past. Just waiting to see Pong on this.

Glad they did, it will be quite usefull to connect it to my 15 year's old, 20" still in perfect shape, TV!!! Cheesy

  That was my first impression. Older tv for the win.

If you're not excited by the idea of being an early adopter 'now', then you should come back in three or four years and either tell us "Told you it'd never work!" or join what should, by then, be a much more stable and easier-to-use system.
- GA

It is being worked on by smart people.  -DamienBlack
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December 24, 2011, 07:08:22 PM
 #19

How would you go about clustering these things together anyway?

Well, when I first read about Rasperberry PI, before the Beta version with ethernet, I mailed Eben and got his ansewer:

Eben Upton
   
Jul 22
      
to me
Hi Rui
Thanks for your mail. The devices should be available to the general
public later in the year; I'll add you to our mailing list, and will
keep you posted as we get closer to launch.

We have some thoughts about non-Ethernet point-to-point links using
MIPI CSI-2 and DSI, but this is some way down the line.

Cheers

Eben Upton
Director, Raspberry Pi Foundation

On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Rui wrote:
> Hi
> Since Slashdot published an article about your project, I've been thinking
> about it a lot and very tempted to get my hands in some of them.
> In your site you ask what would i do with it, and my answer is I'd love to
> make a very cheap and low power cluster out of it, running Xen, perhaps.
> But then, I realized something:
> Is there any other way to make each one communicate with each other?
> As far I've understood, it has to be via an usb-ethernet adapter, right?
> How costly would it be to implement some kind of bus so we could stack them
> together and even, power them all at the same time?
> Perhaps some pins on the side that would connect in some sort of breadboard?
> How about leaving some expanding capabilities open for, let's say,
> peripherals connecting directly to this bus for robotics or other purposes?
> Bear in mind that these are just some of my thoughts about it and i think
> that leaving room for parallel processing will attract lots of people, but I
> understand it might be too difficult to implement and I even believe you
> have thought about it already.
> If you need some more thoughts or ideas about this, don't hesitate
> contacting me.
> By the way, I'd like to ask you a favor of notifying me about the release of
> this way cool computer, please.
> Perhaps I'll be able to buy a pair in December or something.
>
> With my best regards,
>
> Rui

But it evolved, so, with or without ethernet itś fairly simple to make the board communicate with each other (usb wifi, usb ethernet, etc...).
So you would stack up a bunch of them, nominate one as the master and all the rest would be running as slaves.
Then, you fire up each board's OS, run XEN and start adding them up to the master.
You would end up with a virtualized computer where you would put any OS you could (don't know yet if it would support normal x86 code that way). But even so, there could be a distributed ARM miner to take advantage of this, I gess... Or let XEN take care of distribution and load balancing, alone.

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December 27, 2011, 07:05:20 PM
Last edit: December 27, 2011, 08:44:50 PM by Transisto
 #20

Quote
No pre-orders have been taken because the organisation said it did not want to take anyone's cash without having something to hand over in return.
That part reminded me of BFL
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