Intel showcases Arctic Sound M data center GPU
Intel has been promoting AV1 as a mainstream streaming video format in recent years. Compared with H.265, it saves bit rate and has better quality, and it still does not require royalties. In fact, many mainstream video websites have already begun to provide videos in AV1 format. Intel’s new DG2 architecture graphics card has added the encoding function to AV1 format. At present, NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards do not have this function. As for the decoding function, Intel’s own Xe architecture GPU already provides the decoding function for AV1 format video, and the latest graphics cards of NVIDIA and AMD also have this function.
At the 2022 investor conference, Intel demonstrated the code-named Arctic Sound M data center GPU, which has video encoding capabilities in AV1 format, which is used for video transcoding. Intel calls it a media supercomputer, and the Arctic Sound M can transcode eight 4K video streams simultaneously, or 30 1080p video streams, which could potentially be used by video sites or game streaming services.
This Arctic Sound M is a single-slot full-height accelerator card, which contains a DG2 GPU with 128 groups of EUs, a PCI-E 4.0 x16 slot, and a single 8pin power supply port at the rear. It has a radiator inside and does not have a fan itself, it relies on the airflow of the chassis to dissipate heat.
The performance data of this card has not been released yet, but Intel has shown the video bit rate comparison between AV1 and H.264 formats. Under the same video quality, the video bit rate of AV1 is 44.9Mb/s, while that of H.264 format is 64.7Mb/s, saving 30% of traffic. This saves a lot of traffic for both the user and the service provider.
Via: techpowerup
