Tenstorrent, a RISC-V processor and AI startup led by legendary chip architect Jim Keller, the brains behind AMD’s Zen architecture, launched its first hardware in March 2024. Grayskull is a RISC-V alternative to GPUs, and the company produced two Grayskull-powered DevKits: the Grayskull e75 and the more powerful Grayskull e150.
The company has followed up on those initial launches with Wormhole, offering two PCIe boards, the n150s and n300s, featuring flexible, scalable processors built around Tensix cores. The boards include a compute unit, on-chip networking, local cache, and “baby RISC-V” cores. Tenstorrent says they offer superior performance for the cost compared to traditional GPUs and broad support for high-precision data formats.
The n150s has more processing power per ASIC (72 Tensix cores), but the n300s has two ASICs on the board (128 Tensix cores, 64 per ASIC). While Tenstorrent is still selling Grayskull Dev Kits, it plans to focus all of its attention on Wormhole, which in turn will be replaced by Blackhole next year.
Wormhole Workstations
While you can buy Wormhole boards individually, Tenstorrent also sells them in pre-built AI workstations with both Intel and AMD configurations. The TT-LoudBox is equipped with two Intel Xeon 4309Y processors, capable of running between 2.8 and 3.6 GHz, backed by 512 GB of RAM and four n300s cards in a 2×4 mesh. This model also features 4 TB of NVMe storage and dual 10GbE copper Ethernet connections. It’s priced at $12,000 and offers optional rack-mounting for easy integration into various IT setups.
Tenstorrent’s other AI workstation, the TT-QuietBox, packs a 16-core AMD EPYC 8124P processor running at speeds between 2.4 and 3.0 GHz and four liquid-cooled n300s cards in a 2×4 mesh. This version is designed for environments where noise reduction is crucial, but without compromising performance. It also comes with 4TB of NVMe storage and two 10GbE copper Ethernet ports. The TT-QuietBox is available for $15,000 and is also rack-mountable.
Both units are obviously aimed at professionals who need reliable and powerful computing solutions. ServingTheHome He says: “The company’s idea is that by offering eight ASICs in a developer box, they can all be used together for a single developer or can be split up to support multiple developers at once.”
