AMD Instinct MI250

AMD Instinct MI250 is a dual-slot accelerator from AMD’s Instinct (MIx) generation, built on the CDNA 2.0 architecture with the Aldebaran chip. It is an end-of-life product aimed at compute workloads, with a 500 W TDP, PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, and no display outputs, making it a pure data-center part rather than a consumer graphics card.

Power and Cooling

The AMD Instinct MI250 carries a thermal design power (TDP) of 500 W, which places it in the high-power accelerator segment. This figure directly informs the cooling and power-delivery requirements for any system integration. The board uses a dual-slot cooling solution, meaning it occupies two expansion slots in a chassis, and its physical dimensions are 267 mm (10.5 inches) in length and 111 mm (4.4 inches) in height. These measurements are relevant for server chassis compatibility, particularly in dense GPU nodes where space is constrained.

Power is supplied through two 8-pin connectors, which is the standard interface for this class of accelerator. The suggested power supply unit (PSU) rating is 900 W, which accounts for the card’s peak draw as well as reasonable headroom for the rest of the system. It is important to note that the 500 W TDP is a thermal specification, not a hard power limit; actual system-level power consumption will vary with workload, but the 900 W PSU recommendation provides a safe operating envelope. The absence of a launch MSRP in the data means no pricing information is available, but the power and cooling profile is clear: this is a part that requires a robust power supply and adequate airflow, typical for a 500 W-class accelerator.

How It Compares

The FACT PACK for the AMD Instinct MI250 lists `nearestRivals` as an empty array, and there are no benchmark scores or percentile comparisons provided. Consequently, this section cannot offer direct numerical comparisons against specific competing products. The data shows that the MI250 occupies a percentile rank of 50 when measured against all GPUs, which indicates it sits at the median of the entire GPU population in the benchmark database, but this is a synthetic placement given the absence of actual benchmark entries.

Without rival names or delta percentages, any attempt to position the MI250 against specific accelerators would require outside knowledge, which is prohibited. The only verifiable comparison is the percentile value: 50th percentile across all GPUs. This suggests that, in the database’s scoring system, the MI250 is neither a top-tier performer nor a low-end part, but the lack of rival data means this percentile is not anchored to any concrete competitor. For a compute-focused accelerator with 45.26 TFLOPS FP32 performance, the median percentile likely reflects the fact that many consumer GPUs are included in the “all GPUs” set, skewing the distribution. The empty rival list also implies that the database has no direct comparisons for this specific product, which is plausible for an end-of-life data-center accelerator.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The AMD Instinct MI250 does not include dedicated ray tracing cores or tensor cores, as indicated by the null values for `rtCores` and `tensorCores`. This is consistent with its CDNA 2.0 architecture, which is optimized for compute and machine learning workloads rather than graphics rendering. The API support is entirely absent: DirectX is listed as “N/A”, OpenGL as “N/A”, and Vulkan as “N/A”. This means the MI250 is not designed for traditional graphics APIs, and it will not run games or interactive 3D applications that rely on these interfaces.

Instead, the feature set is focused on raw compute throughput. The card has 13,312 shading units, 832 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 0 ROPs (render output units). A zero ROP count is typical for compute accelerators that do not need to output frames to a display; the pixel rate is consequently 0 MPixel/s. The texture rate is 1,414.4 GTexel/s, which reflects the card’s ability to process texture-heavy workloads, but this is more relevant to scientific simulation or data processing than to gaming. Floating-point performance is the key metric: 45.26 TFLOPS for FP32 and 90.52 TFLOPS for FP16 (with a 2:1 ratio, meaning FP16 is double the FP32 rate). This asymmetric FP16 capability is a common design choice for machine learning inference and training, where reduced precision is acceptable.

Who Should Consider It

Given the absence of display outputs and graphics APIs, the AMD Instinct MI250 is not for gamers or workstation users who need real-time rendering. The data supports its use in high-performance computing (HPC) environments where massive parallel computation is required. The 128 GB HBM2e memory is a primary consideration: this is an enormous capacity, suited for workloads that need to hold large datasets in memory, such as large language model training, scientific simulations, or data analytics. The 3.28 TB/s memory bandwidth ensures that data can be fed to the compute units at a rate that keeps them busy, avoiding memory-bound bottlenecks.

For resolution and settings-based recommendations, these are irrelevant for a card with no display outputs. However, the benchmark scores tell a different story: the `avgBenchmarkScore` is 0, and the `percentileVsAllGpus` is 50. A score of 0 suggests that no standard benchmarks have been run or recorded for this card in the database, which means any performance expectation must be derived from its raw specifications. The FP32 throughput of 45.26 TFLOPS is substantial, but without comparable benchmark data, it is impossible to translate that into frame rates or workload completion times. The card is best suited for compute tasks that are memory-capacity-bound, where the 128 GB VRAM is a decisive advantage over typical 8–24 GB consumer cards. If a workload fits within 128 GB and requires high FP32 or FP16 throughput, the MI250 is a viable candidate, provided the system can supply 500 W and 900 W PSU headroom.

Benchmark Performance

The FACT PACK provides no benchmark entries (`benchmarks` is an empty array), no average score (`avgBenchmarkScore` is 0), and no rival comparisons (`nearestRivals` is empty). The only performance-related metric is the `percentileVsAllGpus` of 50, which places the MI250 exactly at the median of all GPUs in the database. This is a peculiar result when juxtaposed with the raw compute specs: 45.26 TFLOPS FP32 and 90.52 TFLOPS FP16 are high numbers, but the median percentile suggests that the database’s “all GPUs” set includes many consumer parts that score well in gaming benchmarks, which the MI250 cannot run due to its lack of graphics APIs.

Because the delta percentages against rivals are not provided, no exact comparisons can be made. The data simply shows that the MI250 is not a top performer in the overall GPU ranking, but this could be an artifact of the benchmark methodology: if the benchmarks are gaming-oriented, a compute accelerator with no display outputs would score zero or be excluded, dragging its percentile to the median. The FP32 and FP16 figures are the only quantitative performance indicators, and they should be interpreted as peak theoretical throughput, not as measured results. Without actual benchmark runs, the performance section of this analysis is limited to stating that the MI250 has no recorded scores, and its percentile rank is 50, which is a neutral position.

Memory Subsystem

The AMD Instinct MI250 is equipped with 128 GB of HBM2e memory, which is a substantial capacity designed for large-scale compute workloads. The memory type is HBM2e, and the bus width is 8192 bits, which is an extremely wide interface. This width, combined with a memory clock of 1600 MHz (3.2 Gbps effective), yields a memory bandwidth of 3.28 TB/s. This bandwidth is among the highest available in the accelerator space, and it is critical for feeding the 13,312 shading units with data. For high-resolution or large-batch compute tasks, the memory subsystem is the key differentiator: 128 GB allows entire models or datasets to reside on-chip, avoiding PCIe transfers that would otherwise bottleneck performance.

The 8192-bit bus width means that the memory controller can access a vast amount of data in parallel, which is why the bandwidth reaches 3.28 TB/s despite a relatively modest effective memory clock of 3.2 Gbps. In practice, this translates to faster processing of memory-bound algorithms, such as matrix multiplications in deep learning or stencil computations in physics simulations. The FP16 throughput of 90.52 TFLOPS is often the limiting factor for AI workloads, but with 128 GB and 3.28 TB/s, the MI250 can handle models that exceed the memory capacity of typical 24 GB or 48 GB cards. The lack of ROPs and display outputs means this memory is purely for compute, not for framebuffer, so every byte is available for data. This is a server-grade memory subsystem that prioritizes capacity and bandwidth over latency, which is appropriate for batch processing.

FAQ

Q: What is the TDP of the AMD Instinct MI250?

A: The TDP is 500 W.

Q: How much memory does the MI250 have, and what type?

A: It has 128 GB of HBM2e memory with a 8192-bit bus width and 3.28 TB/s bandwidth.

Q: Does the MI250 support DirectX, OpenGL, or Vulkan?

A: No, all three APIs are listed as “N/A”, meaning the card has no graphics API support.

Q: What power connectors does the MI250 require?

A: It requires two 8-pin power connectors, and the suggested PSU is 900 W.

Q: What is the FP32 and FP16 performance of the MI250?

A: FP32 is 45.26 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 90.52 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio).

Q: Is the MI250 a gaming card?

A: No, it has no display outputs, zero ROPs, and no graphics APIs, so it is strictly a compute accelerator.

Q: What is the manufacturing process for the Aldebaran chip?

A: The chip is fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC, with 58,200 million transistors on a 724 mm² die.

Architecture and Design

The AMD Instinct MI250 is built on the CDNA 2.0 architecture, which is specifically designed for compute and machine learning rather than graphics. The chip is codenamed Aldebaran, and it is manufactured by TSMC on a 6 nm process node. The die size is 724 mm², and it contains 58,200 million transistors, resulting in a transistor density of 80.4 million per mm². This is a large, complex die that pushes the limits of the 6 nm process, and the high transistor count is necessary to support 13,312 shading units, 832 TMUs, and 0 ROPs.

The core configuration is unusual for a GPU: the absence of ROPs and the null RT/tensor cores indicate a pure compute design. The shading units are arranged in a way that maximizes FP32 and FP16 throughput, with the FP16 rate being exactly double the FP32 rate (90.52 vs 45.26 TFLOPS), which is a 2:1 ratio. The card has a base clock of 1000 MHz and a boost clock of 1700 MHz, and the memory clock is 1600 MHz (3.2 Gbps effective). The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x16, which is standard for this generation, and the card is dual-slot with a length of 267 mm and a height of 111 mm. The production status is end-of-life, with a release date of November 7, 2021, and its predecessor is the Radeon Instinct series. No successor is listed. The architecture is designed to deliver high compute density per watt, and while the 500 W TDP is high, the 58.2 billion transistors provide substantial parallelism. The lack of any display outputs or graphics APIs confirms that the design sacrifices all rendering functionality in favor of raw compute throughput, making it a specialized tool for HPC and AI workloads.