The "secret" Intel Platinum 8167M (26-core, 2.0 GHz) CPU

[drkirkby]

Has anyone any experience of a "secret" Intel Platinum 8167M (26-core, 2.0 GHz) CPU? Does anyone have a data sheet?

I say "secret", as Intel say it was for a specific OEM, and is not generally available, and they will not provide any information whatsoever about it.

I bought an 8167M from eBay. At the time I got it, I only had two sticks of RAM in my Dell 7920 tower workstation. Everything seemed fine, although I knew I was not using all the 6 memory lanes, so RAM performance would not be great.

I then fitted 4 x 32 GB, but the machine would not boot. The manual does not show a configuration for 4 x 32 GB DIMMs, but I was surprised it did not work. When I eventually got 6 DIMMs, the machine would not boot with the 6 in the right sockets.

I now have 7 DIMMs, and with a bit of trial and error, the Dell sees all 7, despite the use of 7 DIMMs is not supported. But only 4 memory channels are working - not the 6 I would have expected. The performance of this CPU is a bit disappointing, but overall for £300 each, there's nothing else around that gives as much CPU power for the money. I should have a second CPU here on Monday, so GIMPS productivity can go up! But I will look for some better CPUs when prices fall.

Dave

[tServo]

Originally Posted by drkirkby

Has anyone any experience of a "secret" Intel Platinum 8167M (26-core, 2.0 GHz) CPU? Does anyone have a data sheet?

I say "secret", as Intel say it was for a specific OEM, and is not generally available, and they will not provide any information whatsoever about it.

I bought an 8167M from eBay. At the time I got it, I only had two sticks of RAM in my Dell 7920 tower workstation. Everything seemed fine, although I knew I was not using all the 6 memory lanes, so RAM performance would not be great.

I then fitted 4 x 32 GB, but the machine would not boot. The manual does not show a configuration for 4 x 32 GB DIMMs, but I was surprised it did not work. When I eventually got 6 DIMMs, the machine would not boot with the 6 in the right sockets.

I now have 7 DIMMs, and with a bit of trial and error, the Dell sees all 7, despite the use of 7 DIMMs is not supported. But only 4 memory channels are working - not the 6 I would have expected. The performance of this CPU is a bit disappointing, but overall for £300 each, there's nothing else around that gives as much CPU power for the money. I should have a second CPU here on Monday, so GIMPS productivity can go up! But I will look for some better CPUs when prices fall.

Dave

A casual google showed many sites with tons of info. PassMark had a detailed benchmark and cpu-world had detailed specs.

AFA trying to pop one of these into a Dell ( which model? ) goes, good luck with that. Dell bioses ( sp? ) are notorious for being inflexible wrt cpu type. Code in the bios is necessary to properly initialize various cpu types and if not present, one tends to get goofy results as you have reported or sometimes won't boot at all.

I think your only chance to use this this cpu is to custom build a machine with a motherboard whose bios supports it.

[drkirkby]

Originally Posted by tServo

A casual google showed many sites with tons of info. PassMark had a detailed benchmark and cpu-world had detailed specs.

Yes, but I don't know how reliable this information is. Nowhere does it say how many memory channels the CPU has. These sites often seem to copy each other, or sometimes have comments like "unverified".

Originally Posted by tServo

AFA trying to pop one of these into a Dell ( which model? ) goes, good luck with that. Dell bioses ( sp? ) are notorious for being inflexible wrt cpu type. Code in the bios is necessary to properly initialize various cpu types and if not present, one tends to get goofy results as you have reported or sometimes won't boot at all.

It's a Dell 7920 tower workstation, which can be configured to a very high specification, costing over $100,000. Most of that cost is the 3 TB of RAM it will take. My own configuration is much more modest.

Originally Posted by tServo

I think your only chance to use this this cpu is to custom build a machine with a motherboard whose bios supports it.

I've managed to reproduce the fault with the standard 4110 Silver CPU supplied with the machine. The machine will not power on if there are 6 x 32 GB, which is supported, nor if there are 4 x 32 GB (not supported) unless they are placed to miss out two memory channels. I can get 4 of 6 working on one CPU. I can also get 7 DIMMs working on the one CPU if I put two DIMMs on some memory channels, and none on two others.
It is very weird, but the fact the problem is seen on the CPU supplied from Dell leads me to think that the problem is the motherboard, and not the CPU. However, Dell will not investigate, even with their own CPU, as I am not using Dell RAM. For two CPUs I need 12 DIMMs for optimal performance. Unfortunately 12 x 32 GB DIMMs from Dell cost as much as I can buy a cheap new car for.
One other thing to note is that the problem does not exist if the CPU is place in the 2nd processor slot. I don't have 12 DIMMs, but only 7. I will order some more in a few days when I get some money I am owed. Even from Kingston, these 2933 MHz ECC 32 GB RDIMMs are pretty expensive.

[tServo]

Originally Posted by drkirkby

Yes, but I don't know how reliable this information is. Nowhere does it say how many memory channels the CPU has. These sites often seem to copy each other, or sometimes have comments like "unverified".

It's a Dell 7920 tower workstation, which can be configured to a very high specification, costing over $100,000. Most of that cost is the 3 TB of RAM it will take. My own configuration is much more modest.

I've managed to reproduce the fault with the standard 4110 Silver CPU supplied with the machine. The machine will not power on if there are 6 x 32 GB, which is supported, nor if there are 4 x 32 GB (not supported) unless they are placed to miss out two memory channels. I can get 4 of 6 working on one CPU. I can also get 7 DIMMs working on the one CPU if I put two DIMMs on some memory channels, and none on two others.
It is very weird, but the fact the problem is seen on the CPU supplied from Dell leads me to think that the problem is the motherboard, and not the CPU. However, Dell will not investigate, even with their own CPU, as I am not using Dell RAM. For two CPUs I need 12 DIMMs for optimal performance. Unfortunately 12 x 32 GB DIMMs from Dell cost as much as I can buy a cheap new car for.
One other thing to note is that the problem does not exist if the CPU is place in the 2nd processor slot. I don't have 12 DIMMs, but only 7. I will order some more in a few days when I get some money I am owed. Even from Kingston, these 2933 MHz ECC 32 GB RDIMMs are pretty expensive.

Here is the link to cpu-world I found:
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/...n%208167M.html

Absent any info from Intel, sites like this are the only alternative.

Although I don't have any Dell 7920s, I have had a couple 7910s for years now and they are absolute bullet-proof work horses. I popped some GPUs in them and have been running them for years with nary a hiccup.

Since you can reproduce the problem with the original cpu, the next suspect would be the memory dimms rather than the motherboard. I agree dell's memory is outrageous. However, are you absolutely sure your memory's specs is identical to dell's?
You should run something like HWinfo or cpu-Z to see what they say.

[kruoli]

Why are you trying to get 12 x 32 GB if 12 x 8 GB would likely be sufficient (by far!) for your use case? If you'd be buying 12 x 8 GB now, that would be far cheaper than purchasing addtional 5 x 32 GB. You could even sell the seven you already have. Someone told you that in another thread already.