AMD’s high-end GPUs not only deliver high-performance graphics, but are heavy-duty compute engines as well. Of course, there is a tradeoff for this performance and flexibility that is not always worthwhile for embedded applications, where displays are the name of the game and computing chores are not as heavy. In this case, embedded GPUs without OpenCL support are more applicable. These display-oriented applications are where AMD’s new Embedded Radeon solutions fit.
The AMD Embedded Radeon E9170 is available in MCM (see photo), MXM, and PCI Express (PCIe) form factors. It delivers embedded display support in a compact package with a sub-40 W TDP. The top end can support up to five 4K displays simultaneously to provide an immersive multimedia environment for applications ranging from medical to gaming. The outputs support HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4.
The GPU has eight computational units and the boards come with 4 Gbytes of 128-bit GDDR5 memory. Although the systems do not support GPU computation applications, they do support 4K HEVC/H.265 and AVC/H.264 decode and encode.
The PCIe boards come in two versions. The E9175 full height board uses less than 50 W while the low profile, half-length E9173 uses less than 35 W, although it is limited to three Display Port connections and it has only 2 Gbytes of 64-bit GDDR5 memory.
The platforms use an optimized, 14 nm FinFET manufacturing process. The result is a platform that delivers three times the performance/W compared to the prior generation of embedded AMD GPUs. The hardware is designed to handle industrial applications where there are stringent shock and vibration requirements.
The hardware comes with DirectX 12 software support as well as cross-platform Vulkan API support. 2D and 3D rendering with 4K displays is supported as well. The boards support AMD Eyefinity with up to four displays. Eyefinity spreads a single desktop across multiple displays.
The boards target long-life-cycle and next-generation designs with planned availability through 2024.
