HP 9000 K-Class Servers

Quick Facts
Introduced 1995-1998
Period Maturity (III)
Series Lettered
CPU 1-4 PA-7200 32-bit
1-4 PA-8000 64-bit
1-6 PA-8200 64-bit
100-240 MHz
Caches 512 KB-4 MB
RAM 512 MB-8 GB
Design U2/UTurn
Drives 6 SCSI
Expansion 1 HSC
4 HP-PB
8 HP-PB (K4x0)
I/O Ethernet
SCSI
3 serial
parallel
MUX

HP 9000 K-Class are multiprocessor PA-RISC servers from the mid- to late-1990s. They were part of the HP 9000 800 server series with many expansion, I/O and processor options.

HP 9000 K-Class
© Hewlett Packard

Based on U2/UTurn architecture, K-Class used 32-bit PA-7200 and 64-bit PA-8000 processors with four-way or six-way multiprocessing, depending on the specific model. They were very powerful and compact Unix servers in the 1990s.

Typical K-Class consisted of System Processing Unit (SPU), separate system console and optional UPS bundled into a single 19″ rack. HP 9000 D-Class were technically very similar servers, smaller in size and slightly cheaper.

HP Visualize K260-EG
© Hewlett Packard

HP marketed also K-Class Power Deskside Models, K260-EG, K460-EG and K460-XP, to be used as Visualize workstations with graphics adapters. These were at the time HP’s most expandable workstations with ultimate performance for engineering and scientific applications. K460-XP used HP Visualize-48XP graphics adapter for heavy 3D.

The first digit in the model number after K (1-5) indicates overall server type:

The number after K1/2/3/4/5 (00, 10, … 80) indicates design, CPUs and chipset.

In the 1990s, K-Class servers were part of the US Navy TAC-4 program technology refreshment, in which HP supplied HP 9000 RISC Unix computers to the Navy.

Additional PA-8200 microprocessors for $25,000 in 1997.
System Model number Introduced Price
K100, K200, K400 HP 9000 809, HP 9000 819, HP 9000 829 March 1995
K210, K410 HP 9000 839, HP 9000 849 September 1995 $40,000, $65,000
K220, K420 HP 9000 859, HP 9000 869 March 1996
K250, K450 HP 9000 802, HP 9000 804 August 1996 $52,200, $68,200
K260, K460 HP 9000 879, HP 9000 889 August 1996 $61,200, $77,200
K360 HP 9000 ? 1998 $36,915
K370, K570 HP 9000 898, HP 9000 899 May 1997 $49,915, $60,915
K380, K580 HP 9000 800 February 1998 $49,915, $76,995

System

Processors

System CPU Speed L1 Cache
HP 9000 K100 1 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 100 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip
HP 9000 K200/K400 1-4 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 100 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip
HP 9000 K210/K410 1-4 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 256/256 KB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip
HP 9000 K220/K420 1-4 PA-7200 PA-RISC 32-bit 120 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip, 2 KB on-chip
HP 9000 K250/K450 1-4 PA-8000 PA-RISC 64-bit 160 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
HP 9000 K260/K360/K460 1-4 PA-8000 PA-RISC 64-bit 180 MHz 1/1 MB off-chip
HP 9000 K370/K570 1-6 PA-8200 PA-RISC 64-bit 200 MHz 2/2 MB off-chip, picture CPU board
HP 9000 K380/K580 1-6 PA-8200 PA-RISC 64-bit 240 MHz 2/2 MB off-chip

Chipset

HP 9000 K-Class servers use either HP U2 or UTurn chipsets for PA-RISC computers. HP computers with Runway bus often used U2 and UTurn I/O adapters (IOA) and MMC/SMC as memory controllers to attach subsystems to the main bus. HP UTurn and U2 attach the GSC main system bus with devices and I/O via Runway to CPUs.

HP 9000 D2x0
K2x0 © Hewlett Packard

The rest of the system design and I/O devices is made up of proven components based on prior HP 32-bit PA-RISC designs, re-using HP LASI as I/O chipset and several server-specific I/O components.

System buses

Expansion

Memory

Expansion cards

Storage

Ports

Operating systems

Dimensions

System Height Width Depth Weight
Stand-alone 635mm 432mm 698mm 59kg
Packaged 870mm 889mm 775mm 77kg

Performance

Compared to other RISC and Unix platforms of the 1990s, PA-RISC was a fast architecture with PA-7200 high-performance and PA-8000 strong 64-bit mid-1990s processors.

PA-RISC SPEC scores of HP 9000 computers
System Processor SPEC95
int		 SPEC95
fp		 SPEC
rate int
K400 1 PA-7200 100 MHz
2 PA-7200 100 MHz
4 PA-7200 100 MHz		 4.92 6.80

10.9		 44.3
87.9
174
K410 1 PA-7200 120 MHz
2 PA-7200 120 MHz
4 PA-7200 120 MHz		 5.92 8.15

13.0		 53.3
106
210
K420 1 PA-7200 120 MHz
2 PA-7200 120 MHz
4 PA-7200 120 MHz		 6.41 9.11

14.7		 57.7
114
228
K450 1 PA-8000 160 MHz
2 PA-8000 160 MHz
4 PA-8000 160 MHz		 10.7 18.8 96
189
375
K460 1 PA-8000 180 MHz
2 PA-8000 180 MHz
4 PA-8000 180 MHz		 11.8 20.2 107
212
418
K570 1 PA-8200 200 MHz
2 PA-8200 200 MHz
4 PA-8200 200 MHz
6 PA-8200 200 MHz		 14.6 23.0 132
261
519
767
K580 1 PA-8200 240 MHz
2 PA-8200 240 MHz
4 PA-8200 240 MHz
6 PA-8200 240 MHz		 17.4 28.5 157
312
610
902
Based on old SPEC95 archives
System CPU SPEC95
int		 SPEC95
fp
DEC AlphaServer 8400 DEC Alpha 21164 612MHz 18.4 20.8
DEC Alphastation 500 DEC Alpha 21164 500MHz 15.0 20.4
SGI Origin 2000 MIPS R10000 250MHz 4MB 14.7 24.5
Sun Ultra 60 Sun UltraSPARC II 296MHz 13.2 18.4
Siemens SCENIC 1000 Intel Pentium II 333MHz 13.0 9.43
IBM RS/6000 43P 150 PowerPC 604e 250 MHz 11.1 8.78
SGI O2 MIPS R10000 196MHz 10.1 8.77
Intel Alder Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz 8.09 6.75
Sun Ultra 2 1170 Sun UltraSPARC 167MHz 6.34 9.33
DEC Alphastation 255 DEC Alpha 21064A 233MHz 4.27 5.09
Siemens PCE-5S Intel Pentium 100MHz 4.04 2.35
IBM RS/6000 43P PowerPC 604 100 MHz 3.59 3.20

In a comparison using MSC/Nastran CAE software, a HP 9000 K200 had around 40% of the performance of a CRAY C90 supercomputer from 1991.

Documentation

Most HP documentation is only available at archive.org and other archives, with most official sources, articles and journals having disappeared in the 2010s.

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