Intel has confirmed Arctic Sound-M, a graphics accelerator intended for data centers that uses a DG2 Xe-HPG GPU (high performance computing). It is important to take this fact into account, since some previous information pointed to the use of a Xe-HP solution.
The Intel Arctic Sound-M comes with a configuration of 512 execution units, which is equivalent to 4,096 shaders, and among the features that the chip giant has confirmed we can see that it has hardware acceleration of AV1 compression formatwhich optimizes bandwidth by up to 30%.
This solution is very powerful, this is clear, but what can it give of itself? Intel has wanted to make clear some things that we can expect from Arctic Sound-M, and the truth is that the details it has confirmed are very interesting. For example, this graphics accelerator can handle up to 8 simultaneous video streams in 4K, more than 30 if the video is in 1080p and has more than 60 virtualized functions.
This information already allows us to glimpse where Intel is pointing with this graphics accelerator, to cloud gaming, that is, to that streaming that occurs when the user connects to one of those services. Cloud gaming has become a very popular solution and is undoubtedly a booming sector with great potential, so it is not surprising that Intel has decided to launch a product like Arctic Sound-M, aimed at boosting this sector .
According to the chip giant, Arctic Sound-M reaches a power of up to 150 TOPs (INT8), and has already begun to supply the first samples of this graphics accelerator which, as can be seen in the images, has a single-slot design, that is, it occupies only one slot. A totally passive cooling system is also appreciated, and the absence (obviously) of video outputs.
The first units of the Arctic Sound-M will begin to arrive on the market at mid 2022, Although Intel has not yet specified an exact date, so we will have to wait. All in all, this confirmation by Intel is yet another example of the efforts that the chip giant is making to continue diversifying and expanding its business units.
