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

June 14, 2024
Lenovo

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.

Lenovo ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU
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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

Part number Feature code Description
4X67A86131 BU01 ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU

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

Feature Flex 170
GPU Architecture Xe HPG
GPUs per card 1
Execution units 512
Intel Xe Cores 32
Media Engine 2
Ray Tracing 32 RT units
FP32 peak performance 16.8 TFLOPS
FP16 peak performance 128 TFLOPS
INT8 peak performance 256 TOPS
INT4 peak performance 512 TOPS
GPU Memory 16 GB ECC GDDR6
Memory Bandwidth 576 GB/s
Virtualization (SR-IOV) 31 Virtual Functions (VFs)
System Interface PCIe Gen 4, x16 lanes
Form Factor PCIe full-height, full-length, single width
Max Power Consumption 150 W
Thermal Solution Passive
Encoding and decoding • H.264 Hardware Encode/Decode

• 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)

Part Number 4X67A86131
Description ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU
SE350 (7Z46 / 7D1X) Edge
SE350 V2 (7DA9) N
SE360 V2 (7DAM) N
SE 450 (7D8T) 1
SE 455 V3 (7DBY) N
ST50 V2 (7D8K / 7D8J) 1S Intel V2
ST250 V2 (7D8G / 7D8F) N
SR250 V2 (7D7R / 7D7Q) N
SR635 V3 (7D9H / 7D9G) AMD V3
SR655 V3 (7D9F / 7D9E) N
SR645 V3 (7D9D / 7D9C) N
SR665 V3 (7D9B / 7D9A) N
SR675 V3 (7D9Q / 7D9R) N
ST650 V3 (7D7B / 7D7A) Intel V3
SR630 V3 (7D72 / 7D73) N
SR650 V3 (7D75 / 7D76) N
SR850 V3 (7D97 / 7D96) N
SR860 V3 (7D94 / 7D93) N
SR950 V3 (7DC5 / 7DC4) N

Table 4. Server support (Part 2 of 3)

Part Number 4X67A86131
Description ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU
SD665 V3 (7D9P) Dense V3
SD665-N V3 (7DAZ) N
SD650 V3 (7D7M) N
SD650-I V3 (7D7L) N
ST650 V2 (7Z75 / 7Z74) 2S Intel V2
SR630 V2 (7Z70 / 7Z71) N
SR650 V2 (7Z72 / 7Z73) N
SR670 V2 (7Z22 / 7Z23) N
SR635 (7Y98 / 7Y99) AMD V1
SR655 (7Y00 / 7Z01) N
SR655 Client OS N
SR645 (7D2Y / 7D2X) N
SR665 (7D2W / 7D2V) N
SD630 V2 (7D1K) Dense V2
SD650 V2 (7D1M)
SD650-N V2 (7D1N)
SN550 V2 (7Z69)
SR850 V2 (7D31 / 7D32) 4S V2
SR860 V2 (7Z59 / 7Z60) N
SR950 (7X11 / 7X12) 8S

Table 5. Server support (Part 3 of 3)

Part Number 4X67A86131
Description ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU
SR850 (7X18 / 7X19) 4S V1
SR850P (7D2F / 2D2G) N
SR860 (7X69 / 7X70) N
ST50 (7Y48 / 7Y50) 1S Intel V1
ST250 (7Y45 / 7Y46) N
SR150 (7Y54) N
SR250 (7Y52 / 7Y51) N
ST550 (7X09 / 7X10) 2S Intel V1
S R530 (7X07 / 7X08) N
S R550 (7X03 / 7X04) N
S R570 (7Y02 / 7Y03) N
SR590 (7X98 / 7X99) N
SR630 (7X01 / 7X02) N
SR650 (7X05 / 7X06) N
SR670 (7Y36 / 7Y37) N
SD530 (7X21) Dense V1
SD650 (7X58) N
SN550 (7X16) N
SN850 (7X15) N
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.

Lenovo ThinkSystem Intel Flex 170 16GB Gen4 Passive GPU
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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.

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For more information, refer to these documents:

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

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