GPU powered storage: AMD's Radeon Pro SSG fits a Polaris GPU alongside M.2 SSDs

Scorpus

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AMD has announced a new Polaris-based workstation graphics card with a twist. The Radeon Pro Solid State Graphics (SSG) pairs a Polaris 10 GPU with two M.2 slots, giving the card direct access to a ton of solid state storage.

The idea here is that the Radeon Pro SSG will provide professional users with low-latency access to large amounts of data. Current workstation cards typically top out at around 32 GB of VRAM, so when some workloads require access to datasets larger than this, you get slowdowns or hit limitations. With SSDs connected directly to the Radeon Pro SSG to provide well above 32 GB of storage, better performance is theoretically achieved in these situations.

Connecting solid state drives directly to a graphics card via a dedicated PCIe 3.0 interface won't provide the same bandwidth as typical GDDR5 VRAM or HBM. However the improved latency is key for the applications the Radeon Pro SSG is targeting, such as 8K video editing, scientific and medical research, and oil exploration.

The Radeon Pro SSG can support at least 1 TB of storage through the dual M.2 slots, although it's not clear whether this sort of storage is provided along with the graphics card. Performance figures and specifications for the Polaris 10 GPU are also unknown at this stage.

For now, the Radeon Pro SSG is a being labeled as a beta product, with AMD selling developer kits that include the card for $9,999. Full availability for this card is scheduled for sometime in 2017.

Image via Tom's Hardware

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I want this to show up in consumer-oriented stuff, but more optimized for regular storage. Let me put my GPU and my PCIe SSD on the same card? Yes please, even if it means a marginal slow down to either or both.
 
I want this to show up in consumer-oriented stuff, but more optimized for regular storage. Let me put my GPU and my PCIe SSD on the same card? Yes please, even if it means a marginal slow down to either or both.
it's an extra source of heat. you would definitely see a lot of issues if this was used for regular gaming. but I can understand why you would want it.

having it as extra vram makes much more sense.
 
Whoa great idea for ITX builds. waiting for consumer version of this with M.2 slot on backside instead of backplate. usable as normal storage obviously, not just GPU "extra memory".
 
I think this will work a lot better once the Intel/Micron 3D Xpoint drives become commercially available. The bandwidth and speed of the memory will still be slower than current memory used on videocards, but will still be much faster than current NAND technology.
 
WTF? hahahaha! are you being sarcastic?
Well yeah. But why not? Make a nice little games box, it makes more sense than adding graphics to a CPU! Especially as games don't need much CPU, could share the memory too aswell so you wouldn't even need the extra ram!

I guess a USB port and an Ethernet port might also be necessary :)
 
WTF? hahahaha! are you being sarcastic?
Well yeah. But why not? Make a nice little games box, it makes more sense than adding graphics to a CPU! Especially as games don't need much CPU, could share the memory too aswell so you wouldn't even need the extra ram!

I guess a USB port and an Ethernet port might also be necessary :)
The future of gaming consoles, if consoles are still the in thing 20 years here on.
 
Well.... for this to be REALLY usefull for gaming as you guys are saying, there would need to be some api level special treatment, so the game engine send the right bits to the CPU and load the graphic bits right from the GPU internal storage... There could be a lot of crashes and horrors alike coming from implementing it the wrong way.

M.2 SSDs will get cheaper after a while, but if you can use an M.2 slot in your mobo, I think there's no big gains to have it in your GPU. I got a mini ITX rig with an M.2 ssd on the motherboard, it's working wonderfully.

For SFF gaming having an m.2 ssd inside your GPU would be a solution IF we get smaller then mini ITX, perhaps when the mobo be as little as an RX460...
 
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