HP 9000 Series 800 Nova Servers
| Quick Facts | |
|---|---|
| CPU | 1/1-2 (x70) PA-7000/PA-7100 32-96 MHz |
| Caches | 96 KB-4 MB L1 |
| RAM | 128 MB (F10) 192 MB (F20/F30) 384 MB (H20/H30/G30/I30) 768 MB (x50/x60/x70) |
| Drives | many |
| Expansion | 2 HP-PB (Fx0) 6 HP-PB (Gx0/Hx0) 12 HP-PB (Ix0) |
| Bandwidth | ? |
| I/O | SCSI MUX parallel |
Overview
The Nova servers are second-generation 32-bit HP 9000/800 PA-RISC servers, released in the early 1990s and based on the PA-7000 and PA-7100 processors. They were available in different sizes with different expansion options, CPUs and clock speeds.
The Nova servers have the following naming convention:
- The first letter [F, G, H, I] indicates the
external
features, like casing and expansion - The number [10, 20, …, 70] indicates the
internal
features, like CPU and chipset
They were suceeded in the HP 9000/800 series by the PA-7100LC E-Class servers which have a similar case as the F-Class.
Introduced: 1991-1993
Model numbers and prices at introduction:
| System | Model number | Price |
|---|---|---|
| F10 | HP 9000/807 | |
| F20, H20 | HP 9000/817, HP 9000/827 | |
| F30, G30/H30, I30 | HP 9000/837, HP 9000/847, HP 9000/857 | |
| G40/H40, I40 | HP 9000/867, HP 9000/877 | G40: $112,500, I40: $140,000 |
| G50/H50, I50 | HP 9000/887, HP 9000/897 | |
| G60/H60, I60 | HP 9000/887, HP 9000/897 | |
| G70/H70, I70 | HP 9000/887, HP 9000/897 |
Internals
CPU
- F10: PA-7000 32 MHz with 32/64 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- x20: PA-7000 48 MHz with 64/64 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- x30: PA-7000 48 MHz with 256/256 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- x40: PA-7000 64 MHz with 256/256 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- x50: PA-7100 96 MHz with 256/256 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- x60: PA-7100 96 MHz with 1024/1024 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache
- x70: 1-2 PA-7100 96 MHz with 2048/2048 KB off-chip I/D L1 cache each
On systems with PA-7000 processors the FPU was optional — there is often an empty socket on the processor board.
Chipset
The chipset is based on a variant of the ASP chipset,
with at least the Viper memory controller interfacing the processor to memory and the HP-PB I/O bus.
The rest of the system I/O is implemented on so-called HP-PB Personality Boards.
» View a system-level illustration (ASCII) of the 807-877 chipset.
Buses
- PBus processor/memory bus (64 MHz on I70: 256 MB/s)
- VSC main system bus
- HP-PB bus for the general I/O
- SCSI-2 Narrow single-ended bus for main storage I/O
Memory
- HP proprietary modules (same as those on 720, 730 and 750, and 735/755)
- 12 slots
- F10: 16 MB minimum, 128 MB (8×16 MB) maximum
- F20 and F30: 16 MB minimum, 192 MB (12×16 MB) maximum
- H20, H30, G30, I30, x40: 16 MB minimum, 384 MB (12×32 MB) maximum
- x50, x60, x70: 16 MB minimum, 768 MB (12×64 MB) maximum
Expansion
- Fx0: two HP-PB single-height/one double-height
- Gx0: six HP-PB single-height/three double-height
- Hx0: six HP-PB single-height/three double-height
- Ix0: 12 HP-PB single-height/six double-height
Drives
- ? (many)
External connectors
- 50-pin HD SCSI-2 single-ended
- High-pin-count MUX connector
- DB25 female parallel
- Rest depends on installed HP-PB cards
References
Manuals
- Owner’s Guide to the HP 9000 8x7S Family (.pdf) Hewlett-Packard Company (1991. Accessed January 2009 at hpmuseum.net)
- CE Handbook Series 9x7 and Model 8x7S Family (.pdf) Hewlett-Packard Company (February 1992, edition E0292, part number A1707-90016. Accessed January 2009 at hpmuseum.net)
Other
- Pinout for the mini-DIN console connector at the back
Operating systems
The only operating system that runs on these servers is HP-UX — all of these servers are officially supported in versions 10.20 for 800s servers and 11.00. (The first supported release was HP-UX 8.02.) Official support for the Nova servers was dropped in 11.11 (11i), however it is still possible in most cases to install and run 11i on these systems.
It is unlikely if there will ever be a port of an open
operating system,
as not much documentation exist on the I/O and system details.
Benchmarks
| Model | SPEC92, int | SPEC92, fp | MIPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| F10 | 22.0 | 36.6 | 35 |
| x20 | 33.6 | 56.1 | 53 |
| x30 | 37.8 | 62.4 | 53 |
| x40 | 65.2 | 91.3 | 70 |
| x50 | 100.0 | 158.5 | 115 |
| x60 | 108.8 | 195.3 | 115 |
| x70 | 108.8 | 195.3 | 115 |
All results are for single-CPU systems.
Compare these with other results on the Benchmarks page.