Radeon Instinct MI250 vs Instinct MI8
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | GCN 3.0 (2014−2019) | CDNA 2.0 (2021) |
| GPU code name | Fiji | Aldebaran |
| Market segment | Workstation | Workstation |
| Release date | 12 December 2016 (7 years ago) | 8 November 2021 (3 years ago) |
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 4096 | 13312 |
| Core clock speed | 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Boost clock speed | no data | 1700 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 8,900 million | 58,200 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 28 nm | 6 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 175 Watt | 500 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 256.0 | 1,414 |
| Floating-point processing power | 8.192 TFLOPS | 45.26 TFLOPS |
| ROPs | 64 | no data |
| TMUs | 256 | 832 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Length | 152 mm | 267 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 8-pin | 2x 8-pin |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | HBM | HBM2e |
| Maximum RAM amount | 4 GB | 128 GB |
| Memory bus width | 4096 Bit | 8192 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 500 MHz | 1600 MHz |
| Memory bandwidth | 512.0 GB/s | 3,277 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | No outputs | No outputs |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 12 (12_0) | N/A |
| Shader Model | 6.3 | N/A |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | N/A |
| OpenCL | 2.0 | 3.0 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.131 | N/A |
Pros & cons summary
| Recency | 12 December 2016 | 8 November 2021 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 4 GB | 128 GB |
| Chip lithography | 28 nm | 6 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 175 Watt | 500 Watt |
Instinct MI8 has 185.7% lower power consumption.
Instinct MI250, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 4 years, a 3100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 366.7% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between Radeon Instinct MI8 and Radeon Instinct MI250. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
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