Lenovo ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU User Guide

ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU

Product Guide

The ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU is a general-purpose GPU optimized for media stream density and quality. It is designed for data center and edge applications, with high levels of reliability, availability, and scalability. The GPU is suitable for media processing and delivery, Windows and Android cloud gaming, virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI), and AI visual inference applications.

The Intel Data Center GPU Flex 170 is suitable for workloads that include complex AI models, such as multiple object detection or multiple classification models. With its AI compute power, the Flex 170 GPU avoids becoming AI bound. It can support the same number of video streams per adapter as the compute requirements increase.

Figure 1. ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU

Did you know?

The Intel Flex Series GPUs support an open, flexible, standards-based software stack together with oneAPI so developers can build high-performance, cross- architecture applications and solutions. This helps organizations reduce the complexity, cost, and time requirements to bring new solutions to market, enabling engineers and programmers to innovate instead of maintaining code.

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Part number information

The following table shows the ordering information for the Flex 170 GPU.

Table 1. Ordering information

The option part number includes the following:

• One Flex 170 GPU with full-height (3U) adapter bracket attached
• Two extender brackets (straight, offset)
• Documentation

Features

Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series is a flexible, robust, and the industry’s most open GPU solution for the intelligent visual cloud. The GPUs support a diverse range of workloads in the industry starting with media streaming and cloud gaming, followed by support for AI visual inference and virtual desktop Infrastructure workloads. It supports an open, standards-based software stack optimized for density and quality with critical server capabilities for high reliability, availability, and scalability. This helps reduce the need for data centers to use disparate solutions and manage heterogenous or proprietary environments.

The ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU offers the following features:

• Open Architecture
  The Intel Flex Series GPU supports an open, flexible, standards-based software stack together with oneAPI so developers can build high-performance, cross- architecture applications and solutions. This helps organizations reduce the complexity, cost, and time requirements to bring new solutions to market, enabling engineers and programmers to innovate instead of maintaining code.

• Built-In AV1 Encode
  Services built on the royalty-free open-source AV1 codec mean lowering operational expenses while providing higher video quality. Advanced video coding (AVC), High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), and VP9 support also comes standard with the Intel Data Center GPU.

• No Licensing Fees
  Intel provides free virtual GPU software license to customers for lowering their total cost of ownership in VDI deployments. Furthermore, this can act as a catalyst to accelerate the GPU adoption rate in VDI deployments where graphics & encode accelerations are desired/preferred but can often be cost prohibitive.

• Flexible vGPU Management
  The Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series supports multiple vGPU configuration & scheduling options for VDI solutions to meet different customer workload and QoS requirements – such as Linux KVM open-source virtualization technology and VMware ESXi. It also supports both VMware Horizon and Citrix DaaS♱ on top. The Flex Series accelerators have strong ecosystem support. The top two industry leading desktop & application virtualization solutions, VMware Horizon and Citrix DaaS, will be supported.

• High Performance Virtual Desktop
  The Intel Data Center GPU Flex 170 is ideal for VDI deployment targeting power users persona -­ 3D and media content creation workloads whose graphics and compute performance requirements are high.

Technical specifications

The following table lists the specifications of the Flex 170 GPU.

Table 2. Specifications

• H.265 (HEVC) Hardware Encode/Decode
• AV1 Encode/Decode
•  VP9 Bitstream & Decoding

Server support

The following tables list the ThinkSystem servers that are compatible.

Table 3. Server support (Part 1 of 3)

Table 4. Server support (Part 2 of 3)

Table 5. Server support (Part 3 of 3)

Software stack

The Flex Series GPU supports an open, flexible, standards-based software stack with oneAPI cross-architecture programming. The stack includes open source components and libraries, tools and frameworks so developers can create high- performance, cross-architecture media applications and solutions to meet a wide range of use cases. This open approach removes the barriers to proprietary models where code portability and the ability to adopt new architectures across multiple vendors is limited.

Intel enables the software ecosystem through industry collaborations, initiatives and standards bodies. It also provides ongoing leadership, investment and technical contributions to the open source community.

The common set of software capabilities integrates into popular middleware and frameworks, and the stack is delivered in validated productized containers or reference stacks. The containers can be orchestrated with Kubernetes on bare metal or in VMs using SR-IOV virtualization with tools to assign and manage workloads. The toolset is designed to speed time-to-market and enable flexible deployment of multiple workloads on the same GPU.

Figure 2. Software Stack for Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series (source: intel.com)

The following components are part of the Intel oneAPI Base Toolkit (individual tools can be downloaded separately):

• oneAPI Deep Neural Network Library (oneDNN)
• oneAPI Data Analytics Library (oneDAL)
• oneAPI Video Processing Library (oneVPL)
• Intel VTune Profiler

The following Intel-optimized tools are part of the Intel AI Analytics Toolkit:

• TensorFlow
• PyTorch

For more information about Intel oneAPI, see https://intel.com/oneapi

Auxiliary power cables

The Flex 170 GPU option part number does not ship with auxiliary power cables. Cables are server-specific due to length requirements and the connector on the server end of the cable. For CTO orders, auxiliary power cables are derived by the configurator. For field upgrades, cables will need to be ordered separately as listed in the table below.

Table 6. Auxiliary power cables for the Flex 170 GPU

Auxiliary power cable needed with the SE450

450mm cable
Option: 4X97A90159, ThinkEdge SE450 Intel Flex 170 GPU Power Cable
Feature: BZU3
SBB: SBB7A78275
Base: SC17B68639
FRU: 03LC071

Operating environment

The Flex 170 GPU has the following operating characteristics:

• Ambient temperature
  ο Operational: 0°C to 85°C
  ο Storage: -40°C to 70°C

• Relative humidity:
  ο Operational: 5 to 85%
  ο Storage: 5 to 90%

Physical specifications

The Flex 170 GPU has the following physical specifications:

• Height: 111 mm (including edge connector)
• Length: 254 mm
• Width: 19 mm
• Weight: 806 g

Warranty

One year limited warranty. When installed in a Lenovo server, the GPU assumes the server’s base warranty and any warranty upgrades.

Related publications

For more information, refer to these documents:

• ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile GPU Summary:
  https://lenovopress.lenovo.com/lp0768-thinksystem-thinkagile-gpu-summary

• ServerProven compatibility:
  https://serverproven.lenovo.com/

• Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series product page: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/discrete-gpus/data-center-gpu/flexseries.html

• Intel oneAPI:
  https://intel.com/oneapi

Related product families

Product families related to this document are the following:

• GPU adapters

Notices

Lenovo may not offer the products, services, or features discussed in this document in all countries. Consult your local Lenovo representative for information on the products and services currently available in your area. Any reference to a Lenovo product, program, or service is not intended to state or imply that only that Lenovo product, program, or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program, or service that does not infringe any Lenovo intellectual property right may be used instead. However, it is the user’s responsibility to evaluate and verify the operation of any other product, program, or service. Lenovo may have patents or pending patent applications covering subject matter described in this document. The furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents. You can send license inquiries, in writing, to:

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Attention: Lenovo Director of Licensing

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This information could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically made to the information herein; these changes will be incorporated in new editions of the publication. Lenovo may make improvements and/or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described in this publication at any time without notice.

The products described in this document are not intended for use in implantation or other life support applications where malfunction may result in injury or death to persons. The information contained in this document does not affect or change Lenovo product specifications or warranties. Nothing in this document shall operate as an express or implied license or indemnity under the intellectual property rights of Lenovo or third parties. All information contained in this document was obtained in specific environments and is presented as an illustration. The result obtained in other operating environments may vary. Lenovo may use or distribute any of the information you supply in any way it believes appropriate without incurring any obligation to you.

Any references in this publication to non-Lenovo Web sites are provided for convenience only and do not in any manner serve as an endorsement of those Web sites. The materials at those Web sites are not part of the materials for this Lenovo product, and use of those Web sites is at your own risk. Any performance data contained herein was determined in a controlled environment. Therefore, the result obtained in other operating environments may vary significantly. Some measurements may have been made on development-level systems and there is no guarantee that these measurements will be the same on generally available systems. Furthermore, some measurements may have been estimated through extrapolation. Actual results may vary. Users of this document should verify the applicable data for their specific environment.

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This document, LP1829, was created or updated on October 31, 2023.

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References

• ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU Product Guide > Lenovo Press
• Welcome | ServerProven
• Copyright and Trademark Information | Lenovo US | Lenovo US

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