AMD Instinct MI210 (64GB HBM2e PCIe HPC)
Overview
AMD Instinct MI210 is the entry-level data center GPU in AMD's MI200 series, launched 2022-03-22, in a PCIe form factor. Built on TSMC 6nm FinFET, featuring the CDNA 2 architecture (purpose-optimized for HPC + AI training), with 104 CU (6,656 stream processors), 22.6 TF FP64 vector / 45.3 TF FP64 matrix (1.2× the FP64 performance of NVIDIA A100, making it the HPC king), 181 TF FP16/BF16, and 181 TOPS INT8. It comes with 64 GB HBM2e 1.6 TB/s bandwidth, PCIe Gen 4 + 3× Infinity Fabric Link (300 GB/s P2P). The MI210 was the preferred accelerator for the European LUMI exascale supercomputer (Finland, deployed 2022), targeting HPC + AI training mixed workloads.
Core Specifications
| Item | Spec |
|---|
| Architecture | CDNA 2 (purpose-optimized for HPC + AI) |
| Process | TSMC 6nm FinFET |
| Transistors | 29.2 billion (estimated) |
| Chip Package | Multi-Chip Module (2 GCD + 4 MCD, same architecture as MI250) |
| Compute Units (CU) | 104 |
| Stream Processors | 6,656 |
| Matrix Cores | 416 (double / single precision matrix) |
| FP64 Vector (Peak) | 22.6 TFLOPS |
| FP64 Matrix (Peak) | 45.3 TFLOPS |
| FP32 Vector (Peak) | 22.6 TFLOPS |
| FP32 Matrix (Peak) | 45.3 TFLOPS |
| FP16 / BF16 (Peak) | 181 TFLOPS |
| INT8 (Peak) | 181 TOPS |
| INT4 (Peak) | 181 TOPS |
| Memory | 64 GB HBM2e (4,096-bit bus) |
| Memory Clock | 1.6 GHz |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1.6 TB/s |
| ECC | Full-chip ECC (RAS support) |
| Interface | PCIe Gen 4 (64 GB/s host bandwidth) |
| Infinity Fabric Link | 3 (300 GB/s peak P2P) |
| Total I/O Bandwidth | 364 GB/s (PCIe 64 + IF 300) |
| TDP | 300W |
| Cooling | Passive (server air/liquid cooling) |
| Form Factor | PCIe dual-slot full-height |
| Launch Date | 2022-03-22 |
| Price | $4,000-$4,500 (launch 2022, ~$2,500-3,000 in 2024) |
Comparison with MI250 / MI250X
| Metric | MI210 | MI250 | MI250X |
|---|
| Architecture | CDNA 2 | CDNA 2 | CDNA 2 |
| GCD Count | 1 (multi-chip package) | 2 | 2 |
| CU Count | 104 | 208 | 220 |
| Stream Processors | 6,656 | 13,312 | 14,080 |
| FP64 Vector | 22.6 TF | 45.3 TF | 47.9 TF |
| FP64 Matrix | 45.3 TF | 90.5 TF | 95.7 TF |
| FP16/BF16 | 181 TF | 362 TF | 383 TF |
| INT8 | 181 TOPS | 362 TOPS | 383 TOPS |
| Memory | 64 GB HBM2e | 128 GB HBM2e | 128 GB HBM2e |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1.6 TB/s | 3.2 TB/s | 3.2 TB/s |
| Form Factor | PCIe dual-slot | OAM module (server) | OAM module (server) |
| TDP | 300W | 560W | 560W |
| IF Link Count | 3 | 6 | 8 |
| FP64 vs A100 | 1.2× | 2.4× | 2.5× |
| Workload | MI210 (181 TF FP16) | NVIDIA A100 (312 TF FP16 Tensor) | Note |
|---|
| FP64 HPC (LAMMPS molecular dynamics) | 1.2× A100 | Baseline | MI210 advantage |
| HPL Linpack (FP64 peak) | 22.6-45.3 TF | 9.7 TF | MI210 2.3-4.7× |
| ResNet-50 training (FP16) | ~750 img/s | ~1,500 img/s | A100 2× |
| BERT-Large training (FP16) | ~120 seq/s | ~250 seq/s | A100 2× |
| GPT-2 1.5B training (BF16) | ~25 samples/s | ~55 samples/s | A100 2× |
| Weather forecasting (WRF) | 1.4× A100 | Baseline | MI210 advantage |
| Quantum chemistry (VASP) | 1.3× A100 | Baseline | MI210 advantage |
| Earth system model (ICON) | 1.2× A100 | Baseline | MI210 advantage |
FP64 advantage: The MI210's 22.6 TF FP64 vector + 45.3 TF FP64 matrix is 2.3-4.7× that of the NVIDIA A100 (9.7 TF FP64). In HPC workloads (molecular dynamics, quantum chemistry, earth system simulation, astrophysics), the MI210 significantly outperforms the A100.
Use Cases
- HPC workloads (weather forecasting, climate simulation, earth systems, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics)
- AI training (mid-scale) (ResNet-50, BERT-Large, GPT-2 1.5B)
- Supercomputing centers (European LUMI exascale, US Frontier select nodes)
- Data center PCIe servers (no OAM motherboard required)
- Scientific computing (OpenFOAM, WRF, Quantum ESPRESSO, Gaussian, NAMD)
- EDA verification (Synopsys VCS, Cadence Genus)
- Education/research labs (full ROCm software stack)
- Mixed-precision training (FP64 + FP16 + INT8 simultaneous support)
| Item | Detail |
|---|
| Vendor | AMD Inc. (Santa Clara, USA) |
| Foundry | TSMC Taiwan (6nm FinFET process) |
| Packaging | CoWoS-S (TSMC, 2 GCD + 4 MCD multi-chip) |
| Software Stack | AMD ROCm 5.x / 6.x (open-source), HCC, HIP (CUDA translation layer) |
| AI Frameworks | PyTorch (ROCm backend), TensorFlow ROCm, ONNX Runtime, MEGAPIXEL |
| HPC Applications | OpenMPI, OpenACC, OpenMP 5.0, Cray MPI, AOMP |
| First Customer | LUMI supercomputer (Finland, deployed 2022, Europe's first exascale) / Argonne, LLNL, CSCS Switzerland |
| Price | $4,000-$4,500 (2022 launch), $2,500-$3,000 (2024 spot price) |
| 2026 Status | Still on sale (EOL expected 2027), MI300X/MI325X now mainstream, MI210 relegated to entry-level HPC |
Key Features
- CDNA 2 architecture (purpose-built for HPC + AI, no graphics output)
- 6nm TSMC process, 29.2 billion transistors (estimated)
- 104 CU + 416 Matrix Cores
- 22.6 TF FP64 vector / 45.3 TF FP64 matrix (2.3-4.7× A100, FP64 king)
- 181 TF FP16/BF16 (strong FP16/BF16)
- 181 TOPS INT8 (AI inference capable)
- 64 GB HBM2e (4,096-bit bus)
- 1.6 TB/s memory bandwidth (half of MI250 3.2 TB/s)
- Full-chip ECC (data reliability)
- PCIe Gen 4 + 3× Infinity Fabric Link (300 GB/s P2P)
- Multi-GPU Hive (up to 4 cards direct interconnect, no PCIe switch required)
- OCP Accelerator Module compatible
- Linux 64-bit (RHEL, Ubuntu, CentOS, SLES)
- ROCm open-source (no license fees, CUDA alternative)