New Intel GPU Boards Support Data Center 8K Encoding

Intel has re-branded its previously code-named ‘Arctic’ Add-in Graphic boards (AIBs) as ‘Flex 140 and Flex 170’. The AIBs are intended for use in data centers and server systems (so no display outputs), including those used for content encoding locally and in the cloud.
The boards are said to be the first data center GPUs to include a hardware-based AV1 encoder. Intel said they provide five times the media transcode and twice the decode throughput performance of other solutions but only half the power. Intel’s press release emphasized that the Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series 140 with two devices on a single card can meet the industry’s one-second delay requirement while providing 8K60 real-time transcode of AV1 and HEVC HDR. H.264 and VP9 codecs are also hardware accelerated.