Tenstorrent Blackhole p150a Open RISC-V AI Card
Open-architecture PCIe Gen 5 AI workstation accelerator powered by Tenstorrent's 6nm Blackhole processor (140 Tensix cores + 16 SiFive X280 Big RISC-V cores), packing 32GB GDDR6, 210MB on-chip SRAM, and 4× 800GbE QSFP-DD fabric ports.
Key Engineering Highlights
- 100% open-source software stack (`TT-Metalium` C++ kernels, `TT-NN`, and native `vLLM` backend) with zero proprietary CUDA driver lock-in
- 16 integrated SiFive X280 64-bit RISC-V vector cores enable standalone hostless graph execution directly on the accelerator card
- Four integrated 800GbE QSFP-DD ports let developers cable 2, 4, or 8 cards together into a unified 128GB–256GB torus mesh without PCIe switches
Full Hardware Specifications
| Processor / Edge SoC | Tenstorrent Blackhole 6nm (140 Tensix Cores + 16× SiFive X280 RISC-V Cores) |
|---|---|
| AI Model Stack | Llama-4 / Qwen3 / DeepSeek via Open-Source TT-Metalium, TT-Forge & vLLM |
| Display & Optics | Headless Compute Accelerator (Dual-Slot Active-Cooled PCIe Gen 5 x16) |
| Camera & Vision | 4× 800GbE QSFP-DD Direct Ethernet Fabric Ports (No Switch Required) |
| Measured Weight | 1,350g (p150a Active Blower / p150b Passive Heatsink Variants) |
| Battery & Runtime | Up to 300W PCIe CEM 5.0 12V-2x6 Power Envelope |
| Connectivity & I/O | PCIe Gen 5 x16 + 3.2 Tbps On-Card Ethernet Packet-Switched Mesh |
| Sensors & Acoustics | 32GB GDDR6 (512 GB/s) + 210MB Distributed L1/SRAM Across 140 Tensix Tiles |
⚖️ Side-by-Side Comparison: Tenstorrent Blackhole p150a Open RISC-V AI Card vs. Edge Compute & DevKits Peers
Direct specification comparison against leading competing devices in the Edge Compute & DevKits category.
| Specification | Tenstorrent Blackhole p150a Open RISC-V AI Card (Current) | NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX Super Edge AI DevKit → | Xiaozhi AI Voice Cube Pro (ESP32-S3 Open DevKit) → | Apple Mac mini (M5 Pro 64GB) Private AI Node → |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Tenstorrent | NVIDIA | Open Hardware Community | Apple |
| Retail Price | $1,399 | $499 | $12 | $1,799 |
| Lab Rating | ||||
| Edge SoC | Tenstorrent Blackhole 6nm (140 Tensix Cores + 16× SiFive X280 RISC-V Cores) | NVIDIA Ampere GPU (1024 CUDA + 32 Tensor Cores) | Espressif ESP32-S3R8 (Dual-Core LX7 @ 240MHz + 8MB PSRAM) | Apple M5 Pro (14c CPU + 20c GPU + 16c Neural Engine) |
| AI Model Stack | Llama-4 / Qwen3 / DeepSeek via Open-Source TT-Metalium, TT-Forge & vLLM | Runs Llama-3.2 8B / Qwen2.5-VL 7B / YOLO11 Locally | Edge ESP-SR Wake + Realtime Cloud Voice LLMs | MLX Accelerated Qwen3-32B / Llama-3.3-70B |
| Display / Optics | Headless Compute Accelerator (Dual-Slot Active-Cooled PCIe Gen 5 x16) | HDMI 2.1 / DP 1.4 (Up to 8K) | 1.28-inch Circular IPS LCD (240×240) / 0.96" OLED | Supports up to three 6K displays |
| Camera | 4× 800GbE QSFP-DD Direct Ethernet Fabric Ports (No Switch Required) | Dual MIPI CSI-2 Camera Lanes + 4× USB 3.2 | Optional OV2640 / GC2145 Camera Module | External USB-C / Studio Display Camera |
| Weight | 1,350g (p150a Active Blower / p150b Passive Heatsink Variants) | 450g (including active heatsink & carrier board) | 62g (with 3D-printed enclosure & speaker cavity) | 730g |
| Battery | Up to 300W PCIe CEM 5.0 12V-2x6 Power Envelope | 19V DC Input (15W–40W configurable TDP) | 800mAh LiPo (5h continuous dialogue) | Internal 155W PSU (4W idle draw) |
📚 Related Engineering Teardowns & Reviews
Browse All 88 Articles →Tenstorrent Blackhole p150a Benchmark: Can a $1,399 Open RISC-V + Tensix Card With 210MB SRAM Challenge CUDA GPUs for Local LLMs?
RECIWO Labs tested Tenstorrent's $1,399 Blackhole p150a PCIe workstation accelerator (140 Tensix cores, 16 SiFive X280 Big RISC-V cores, 32GB GDDR6, 210MB on-chip SRAM, and 4x 800GbE QSFP-DD fabric ports), benchmarking open-source TT-Metalium and vLLM performance from single-card 32B models to switchless 4-card 128GB meshes.
RayNeo X3 Pro vs Meta Ray-Ban Display Optical Teardown: Binocular 6,000-Nit MicroLED vs Monocular Geometric Waveguide
RECIWO Labs disassembled the 76g RayNeo X3 Pro binocular full-color MicroLED waveguide glasses ($1,099) and the 39g Baidu Xiaodu AI Glasses Pro ($299), benchmarking eye-box luminance, 6DoF spatial SLAM drift, and thermal dissipation against the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display.
AgiBot Lingxi X2 vs EngineAI PM01 vs Unitree R1 Benchmark: ViLLA Foundation Models, 320-Degree Waist Kinematics & Straight-Knee Gait RL
RECIWO Labs evaluated the three defining mid-size bipedal humanoids of late 2026: AgiBot's 35kg Lingxi X2 powered by the Genie Operator-1 (GO-1) ViLLA foundation model, EngineAI's 40kg open-source PM01 with its 320-degree rotating waist and 2.0 m/s straight-knee human gait, and Unitree's $5,900 25kg R1.
Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 (Hailo-10H 8GB) Review & Benchmark: Running 3B Local LLMs and Whisper in 3 Watts for $130
RECIWO Labs tested the official $130 Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 powered by the 40-TOPS Hailo-10H GenAI NPU and 8GB of dedicated on-HAT LPDDR4X memory, benchmarking Llama-3.2-3B, Qwen2.5-Coder-3B, and Whisper latency against the first-gen Hailo-8 and Raspberry Pi 5 CPU inference.
