Intel's Chief Architect Raja Koduri tweeted the first images of the company's new Xe HP GPUs that that are currently sampling to Intel's customers. The cards, built on the 10nm SuperFin process, are also being used as the software development vehicle for the Aurora Supercomputer. The exascale-class supercomputer has been delayed due to Intel's struggles with the 7nm node used in its Ponte Vecchio GPUs, but due to similarities between the cards, the new Xe-HP cards can be used to develop software for Aurora. The image above shows the already-announced XG310 Intel data center GPU flanked by the new Xe-Hp models.
The variant on the left is clearly a traditional PCIe 3.0 x16 add-in card (AIC) with a full-height, 3/4 length form factor, just like the XG310 model next to it. As a quick reminder, the Intel-powered XG310 GPU consists of four separate Iris Xe Max discrete graphics chips, formerly codenamed DG1, that are also used as discrete GPUs in laptops. Instead of the typical use case for server GPUs, like machine learning workloads, the four processors work in tandem to process cloud gaming and media transcode and encode workloads for real-time video streaming.
Exciting to see these next to each other. Intel's first data center GPU that's in production, between Xe HP GPUs that are sampling to customers. We have ways to go, but an incredible journey so far. 🙏 the incredible team at Intel🙏 2020 is a memorable year for GPU technology pic.twitter.com/2fsJvVeDOKDecember 8, 2020
Given the similarities between the two cards, we can expect the Xe HP GPUs to employ a similar architecture based on multiple Xe graphics die, but paired with HBM memory tied to the GPUs via Intel's EMIB packaging technology. Intel is expected to offer different models with either 1, 2, or 4 tiles (GPU die) to satisfy various workload requirements.
The Xe-HP cards' execution units (EU) also support different data formats tailored for data center and HPC usage, like bfloat16 for AI workloads, DP4A convolution instructions for deep learning and Intel's AMX instructions.
Given the slim size of the two Xe HP variants, it's clear the passively-cooled single-slot designs have a relatively tame TDP limit. On the right, we can see a single auxiliary 8-pin power connector for the card. A single 8-pin can deliver up to 225W safely, and the PCIe slot can deliver 75W; we're looking at a possible 300W maximum power draw for the card.
Intel didn't share further details of the cards pictured, but we expect more details to filter out as they ship to customers.
