Tenstorrent introduces high-end RISC-V wormhole AI processors with phenomenal price-performance ratio

Tenstorrent has launched its cutting-edge Wormhole high-performance AI chips, which feature RISC-V architecture and achieve scalability at a whole new level.

Tenstorrent makes a clear statement in the AI ​​industry and introduces high-end wormhole AI chips and dedicated workstation offerings

Tenstorrent CEO and chip expert Jim Keller often criticizes companies like NVIDIA for the way the company chases the AI ​​hype. So, looking at his company’s new AI solutions, we expect them to be top-notch, and the Wormhole AI chips seem to be very powerful indeed. With the new set of AI processors, Tenstorrent aims to provide its customers with a powerful yet cost-effective solution that is scalable at the same time. Tenstorrent has unveiled not only AI chips but also workstation solutions for the new Wormhole platform, providing a complete package for potential buyers.

Starting with the Wormhole AI chips, Tenstorrent has decided to offer them as PCIe cards in two different configurations: Wormhole n150 and Wormhole n300. The Wormhole n150 comes with a single processor that has 72 Tensix cores. According to Tenstorrent, each Tensix core has “five RISC-V baby cores,” allowing for much more effective scalability as well as multi-chip development.

The processor has a TDP of 160W and delivers 262 TFLOPS of FP8 performance. Interestingly, the Wormhole n150 add-on card features 12GB of GDDR6 memory with a bandwidth of 288GB/s.

The Wormhole n300 has few changes other than the fact that it has two processors, giving it twice the processing power of the n150, and 24 GB of GDDR6 memory.

On paper, the Wormhole line of AI chips may not seem particularly powerful, but Tenstorrent plans to make its AI products competitive by offering massive scalability, natively too. This means multiple Wormhole processors can act as a single unit when they need consistent performance, or they can be used individually, all thanks to the use of Ethernet, the connection that Jim Keller values.

In addition to Wormholes, Tenstorrent has also introduced new workstations, including the TT-QuietBox, which features AMD’s EPYC processor, liquid cooling, and four Wormhole n300 AI cards, for a total of eight processors on board. The company also offers the TT-LoudBox, which features Intel’s Xeon architecture and improved specs, but lacks liquid cooling, hence the name “LoudBox.”

Now coming to the price, Tenstorrent’s Wormhole n150 and n300 cost $999 and $1,399 respectively, making them phenomenally cheaper than the offerings from market competitors. In fact, the performance difference with products like NVIDIA’s H100 AI GPUs is quite large, but considering that the AI ​​chips cost almost ten times as much, they are worth it. For the workstations, the TT-LoudBox costs $6,000, while the TT-QuietBox costs $1,500.

Overall, Tenstorrent’s new products are indeed solid and will prove beneficial to AI startups or individuals looking for mid- to mid-range AI computing power at a reasonable price.

News source: Tenstorrent