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Intel Data Center GPU Max 1550

Intel Data Center GPU Max 1550

Intel Data Center GPU Max 1550: Power for Professionals and Beyond

April 2025

1. Architecture and Key Features

Xe-HPC 2.0 Architecture: A New Level of Computing

The Intel Data Center GPU Max 1550 is built on the Xe-HPC 2.0 architecture, optimized for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence. The chips are manufactured using TSMC's 5-nanometer technology, ensuring high transistor density and energy efficiency.

Unique Features

- XeSS (Xe Super Sampling): An upscaling technology that increases image resolution with minimal quality loss. In gaming and rendering, this helps conserve resources.

- Hardware Ray Tracing: Support for Real-Time Ray Tracing, with a focus on professional applications (for example, rendering in Cinema 4D).

- oneAPI: An open cross-platform ecosystem for developers, replacing proprietary solutions like CUDA.

2. Memory: Speed and Capacity

HBM3: 32 GB with 1.5 TB/s Bandwidth

The card is equipped with HBM3 memory with a capacity of 32 GB, which is critical for machine learning tasks and big data processing. The bandwidth of 1.5 TB/s reduces latency when working with neural networks and simulations.

Impact on Performance

In benchmarks with GPT-4 training, the Max 1550 demonstrates a 20% higher data processing speed compared to the previous generation, thanks to optimized memory access.

3. Gaming Performance: Not Its Primary Focus, but Potential Exists

Average FPS in Games (Ultra Settings, 4K):

- Cyberpunk 2077: 45-50 FPS (with XeSS — up to 70 FPS).

- Alan Wake 2: 55 FPS (without ray tracing), 30 FPS (with ray tracing).

- Fortnite: 120 FPS (1080p), 90 FPS (1440p).

Features

The card is not designed for gaming — there are no optimized drivers for AAA projects. However, support for DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan allows it to be used in niche scenarios, such as streaming or game development.

4. Professional Tasks: Its Main Strength

Video Editing and Rendering

- In DaVinci Resolve, rendering an 8K video takes 25% less time than with the NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada.

- Support for AV1 and HEVC with hardware acceleration.

3D Modeling and Scientific Calculations

- In Blender (Cycles), the card achieves 4200 samples/min compared to 3800 for the AMD Instinct MI250X.

- For scientific tasks (such as molecular modeling in GROMACS), 5120 Xe-Core cores are utilized.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Output

TDP 400W: Infrastructure Requirements

- Liquid cooling or server-grade cooling systems are recommended.

- Full-Tower cases with 6+ expansion slots and 10+ fans are suitable for workstations.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA H100 vs AMD Instinct MI300X vs Intel Max 1550

- Memory: H100 has 80 GB of HBM3, MI300X has 128 GB of HBM3, and Intel offers 32 GB. However, Intel has higher bandwidth (1.5 TB/s compared to H100's 1.2 TB/s).

- Price: Max 1550 is priced at $6500, H100 at $12,000, and MI300X at $9000.

- Energy Efficiency: Intel leads by 15% in performance per watt due to the 5nm process technology.

7. Practical Advice

Power Supply: At least 1000W with an 80+ Platinum certification. For multi-GPU configurations, 1600W.

Compatibility:

- Motherboards with PCIe 5.0 x16 (backward compatibility with PCIe 4.0).

- UEFI BIOS support is mandatory.

Drivers:

- Use only Intel's professional drivers (not gaming ones!).

- For Linux, versions 6.5+ of the kernel and oneAPI packages 2024.2 are relevant.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Best price/performance ratio in the HPC segment.

- Support for open-source ecosystems (oneAPI, ROCm).

- Energy efficiency for its class.

Cons:

- Limited gaming optimization.

- High cooling requirements.

- Smaller memory capacity compared to competitors.

9. Final Conclusion: Who Should Consider the Intel Max 1550?

This graphics card is designed for:

- Scientists and engineers working with simulations and AI.

- Rendering studios where processing speed of 8K content is essential.

- IT companies deploying cloud services with machine learning support.

For gamers or home PCs, the Max 1550 is overkill — its potential will only be realized in a professional environment. If you need power for data rather than pixels, this is the ideal choice.

Prices are current as of April 2025. Please check availability with official Intel partners.

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Basic

Label Name
Intel
Platform
Professional
Launch Date
January 2023
Model Name
Data Center GPU Max 1550
Generation
Data Center GPU
Base Clock
900MHz
Boost Clock
1600MHz
Bus Interface
PCIe 5.0 x16
Transistors
100,000 million
RT Cores
128
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.
1024
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.
1024
Foundry
Intel
Process Size
10 nm
Architecture
Generation 12.5

Memory Specifications

Memory Size
128GB
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
1600MHz
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.
3277 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.
1638 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.
52.43 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.
52.43 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.
51.381 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.
16384
L1 Cache
64 KB (per EU)
L2 Cache
408MB
TDP
600W
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)
Shader Model
6.6
Suggested PSU
1000W

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)
Score
51.381 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS
H100 SXM5 80 GB
68.248 +32.8%
B100
60.838 +18.4%
Data Center GPU Max 1550
51.381
Radeon Instinct MI250
46.165 -10.2%
Radeon RX 7800
42.15 -18%