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Talos™ is the world's first ATX-compatible, workstation-class mainboard for the new, free-software friendly IBM POWER8 processor and architecture. Designed for security-conscious users requiring high performance, the flexible and extensible Talos™ mainboard includes two Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) capable slots; utilizes libre-toolchain FPGAs for system control and routing; provides a plethora of PCI Express slots; and includes a GPIO header for custom peripherals. Talos™ schematics[1] and libre (fully open and auditable) firmware also are included.

Why POWER?
POWER is the only open, owner-controllable architecture that is competitive in performance. No other architecture comes close to POWER's unique advantages.
See a direct comparison of POWER8 with libre and non-libre systems.

Why Talos™?
Security-minded individuals and corporations can own a Talos™ Secure Workstation mainboard, complete with an entry-level 8-core 130W POWER8 CPU, heatsink / fan assembly, and ATX I/O shield, for around $5,300 USD. Because Talos™ is specifically designed for workstation use, you don't need to have a small server under your desk to realize the advantages of POWER8!

More Information
Please see our FAQ and preliminary specifications pages for more details. You also can join us on freenode IRC via our #talos-workstation channel. If you opt to purchase a more powerful POWER8 CPU (sold separately), the standalone Talos™ board and accessories (no CPU) may be purchased for around $4,000 USD including domestic shipping.
Talos™ Secure Workstation
 Preliminary Specifications Overview

  • 1 POWER8 SCM
    • 8, 10, and 12 core variants available (190W TDP)
    • 8 and 10 core variants also available in 130W TDP versions
    • Hardware virtualization (HVM, qemu supported)
    • POWER IOMMU
    • Vector Multimedia eXtension (VMX)
    • Vector Scalar eXtension (VSX)
    • AES acceleration for VMX / VSX
  • 8 DDR3 RDIMM slots w/ ECC support (2 memory controllers, 256GB maximum)
  • 2 x16 Coherent Accelerator Processor Interface (CAPI) capable PCIe slots (8 shared lanes)
  • 4 x8 PCIe slots
  • 1 x1 internal mPCIe slot
  • 1 legacy PCI slot
  • 8 internal SATA 6Gbps ports
  • 2 external eSATA 6Gbps ports
  • 1 HDMI port
  • 8x USB 3.0
  • 2 GbE ports
  • 2 external RS232 ports
  • 2 internal RS232 ports
  • 1 internal GPIO header
See the full Talos™ preliminary specifications and supported operating systems.

The Talos™ Secure Workstation is now on Crowd Supply!

Order your mainboard or complete workstation system at Crowd Supply today!

[1] Although an effort will be made to provide nearly complete Talos™ schematics to purchasers of the Talos™ mainboard, several pages will be redacted on the public schematic due to mandatory NDAs with a few of our support silicon vendors. The affected areas are primarily related to the PCIe subsystem, do not directly involve the IBM components, and should not hinder third-party development or modification of Talos™ firmware, hardware, or peripherals in most cases. Furthermore, these components do not contain reprogrammable CPU(s), and are also fully isolated behind the IOMMU integrated into the POWER CPU.

Have suggestions for improving Talos™? Want to provide feedback for use in our next Talos™ Mk II design? Feel free to contact us at sales@raptorengineering.com; please include the subject line Talos Feedback.

WARNING: Talos™ logos, designs, and other related materials are © 2015 - 2016 Raptor Engineering, LLC, all rights reserved, and may be trademarked, licensed, patented, and/or patent pending. Distribution, hotlinking, incorporation into any other design, and/or any other use or reuse without written permission from Raptor Engineering, LLC is strictly prohibited. If you would like to reprint the Talos™ logos or benchmarks please contact us at support@raptorengineering.com; we normally grant uses that promote POWER8 and Talos™ free of charge.

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Design and contents copyright
© 2009 - 2017 Raptor Engineering, LLC.
All rights reserved.
No pages or files may be distributed without express written permission.

This website makes minimal use of cookies.
Use of this site constitutes acceptance of this policy.