Intel Data Center GPU Max 1100

Intel Data Center GPU Max 1100

Intel Data Center GPU Max 1100: Power for Professionals and Beyond

April 2025


1. Architecture and Key Features

The Intel Data Center GPU Max 1100 is built on the Xe-HPC (Ponte Vecchio) architecture, originally designed for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence tasks. The chip is manufactured using a hybrid technology with TSMC N5 (5 nm) for computing modules and Intel 7 for foundational components, balancing energy efficiency and performance.

A key feature of this GPU is support for XMX matrix cores (Xe Matrix Extensions), which accelerate AI operations, and hardware ray tracing (RT accelerators). Unlike NVIDIA's DLSS or AMD's FSR, Intel offers XeSS (Xe Super Sampling), which enhances image resolution with minimal quality loss. For professional tasks, OneAPI functions are relevant—a cross-platform development environment that simplifies code optimization for different architectures.


2. Memory: Speed and Volume

The card is equipped with 32 GB HBM2e with a bandwidth of 1.6 TB/s—enough for processing complex models and large datasets. For comparison, the NVIDIA H100 uses HBM3 (3.35 TB/s), but the Max 1100 benefits from memory optimization through Multi-Tile Architecture, distributing tasks among 47 chiplets. Such a volume may be excessive for gaming, but it offers advantages for 8K rendering or scientific simulations.


3. Gaming Performance: Not Primary, But Possible

Intel positions the Max 1100 as a data center solution, but tests show it delivers modest results in games. In Cyberpunk 2077 (4K, max settings, no ray tracing), the card achieves approximately 45 FPS, and with XeSS enabled—up to 60 FPS. In Horizon Forbidden West (1440p), the average is 75 FPS. Ray tracing reduces FPS by 30–40%, which is worse than the NVIDIA RTX 4090 but better than the AMD Radeon Pro W7800. Conclusion: The GPU is suitable for streaming or cloud gaming, but not for enthusiasts.


4. Professional Tasks: Power in Details

Here, the Intel Max 1100 reveals its potential:

- 3D Rendering: In Blender (using OneAPI), rendering a scene takes 15% less time than on the NVIDIA A100.

- Video Editing: In DaVinci Resolve 18.6, rendering an 8K project takes 8 minutes compared to 11 minutes for the AMD Instinct MI250X.

- Scientific Calculations: Support for OpenCL 3.0 and SYCL makes the card ideal for CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations.

However, NVIDIA's CUDA accelerators remain the standard for many applications, and transitioning to OneAPI requires adaptation.


5. Power Consumption and Heat Dissipation

The card's TDP is 400 W, requiring a thoughtful cooling system. Intel's solution is a hybrid cooler with a passive heatsink and active fans, but for stable operation in data centers, liquid cooling is recommended. The case should have at least 4 expansion slots and ventilation with front and rear airflow. For home use, such a card is inconvenient: noise under load reaches 45 dB.


6. Comparison with Competitors

- NVIDIA H100: Better for AI tasks (up to +40% in TensorFlow), but more expensive ($15,000 versus $8,000 for Max 1100).

- AMD Instinct MI300X: Higher memory bandwidth (5.3 TB/s), but poorer software support.

- NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada: Optimized for workstations but limited to 48 GB GDDR6 compared to Intel's HBM2e.

Intel wins in price/performance ratio for specific tasks, such as meteorological simulations.


7. Practical Tips

- Power Supply: At least 850 W with 80+ Platinum certification.

- Compatibility: Requires a motherboard with PCIe 5.0 x16 and UEFI support.

- Drivers: Stability improved by 2025, but for professional software, it’s better to use Certified Drivers from Intel Portal.


8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Best price for HPC tasks.

- Support for cross-platform OneAPI.

- High memory bandwidth.

Cons:

- Limited gaming optimization.

- Noisy cooling system.

- Not all studios have transitioned to SYCL/OneAPI.


9. Final Conclusion: Who is the Intel Max 1100 For?

This graphics card is designed for:

- Research laboratories, where calculation speed and budget are critical.

- Rendering studios that work with 8K content.

- Cloud providers implementing hybrid solutions for gaming and computations.

For gamers or designers focused on Adobe/CUDA, it’s better to choose NVIDIA's RTX 5000 series or AMD Radeon Pro. But if your goal is a balance between price, versatility, and power, the Intel Data Center GPU Max 1100 will be a reliable partner.

Price: Starting at $8,000 (retail, April 2025).

Basic

Label Name
Intel
Platform
Professional
Launch Date
January 2023
Model Name
Data Center GPU Max 1100
Generation
Data Center GPU
Base Clock
1000MHz
Boost Clock
1550MHz
Bus Interface
PCIe 5.0 x16
Transistors
100,000 million
RT Cores
56
Tensor Cores
?
Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.
448
TMUs
?
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.
448
Foundry
Intel
Process Size
10 nm
Architecture
Generation 12.5

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
48GB
Memory Type
HBM2e
Memory Bus
?
The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.
8192bit
Memory Clock
600MHz
Bandwidth
?
Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.
1229 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Texture Rate
?
Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.
694.4 GTexel/s
FP16 (half)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.
22.22 TFLOPS
FP64 (double)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
22.22 TFLOPS
FP32 (float)
?
An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.
21.776 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

Shading Units
?
The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.
7168
L1 Cache
64 KB (per EU)
L2 Cache
204MB
TDP
300W
Vulkan Version
?
Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.
N/A
OpenCL Version
3.0
OpenGL
4.6
DirectX
12 (12_1)
Power Connectors
1x 12-pin
Shader Model
6.6
Suggested PSU
700W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
21.776 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
20.933 -3.9%
19.59 -10%