Hardware interconnects for CPU/GPU/accelerator communication
1. NVLink
- Developer: NVIDIA
- Purpose: High-speed GPU-to-GPU and GPU-to-CPU communication.
- Status: Active (used in NVIDIA Hopper/Ada GPUs).
- Key Features:
- Higher bandwidth than PCIe (up to 900 GB/s in NVLink 4.0).
- Critical for AI/HPC workloads (e.g., NVIDIA DGX systems).
- Supports multi-GPU shared memory and scalability.
2. UALink
- Developer: Consortium (AMD, Intel, Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc.).
- Purpose: Open standard for accelerator/GPU communication.
- Status: Emerging (expected launch in 2024).
- Key Features:
- Aims to compete with NVLink as a vendor-neutral alternative.
- Targets AI/data center workloads.
- Designed for scalability and interoperability.
3. Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI)
- Developer: Intel
- Purpose: CPU-to-CPU and CPU-to-memory communication (pre-2017).
- Status: Deprecated (replaced by Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI).
- Key Features:
- Used in Intel Xeon Nehalem/Ivy Bridge architectures.
- Supported coherent multi-processor systems.
4. HyperTransport (HT)
- Developer: AMD
- Purpose: CPU-to-CPU and CPU-to-I/O communication (pre-Ryzen era).
- Status: Deprecated (replaced by Infinity Fabric in Zen CPUs).
- Key Features:
- Used in AMD Opteron/Athlon processors.
- Reduced latency for chipset communication.
5. Intel Xe Link
- Developer: Intel
- Purpose: Multi-GPU/accelerator communication for data centers.
- Status: Active (Intel Ponte Vecchio GPUs, Falcon Shores).
- Key Features:
- Part of Intel’s Xe GPU architecture.
- Competes with NVLink in HPC/AI workloads.
- Supports high-density GPU clusters.
6. Scalable Link Interface (SLI)
- Developer: NVIDIA
- Purpose: Multi-GPU rendering for gaming/workstations.
- Status: Deprecated (phased out post-2019).
- Key Features:
- Used bridge connectors for consumer GPUs (e.g., GeForce).
- Focused on splitting rendering tasks, not scalable compute.
Key Notes
- Active Technologies: NVLink, UALink (emerging), Intel Xe Link.
- Deprecated/Replaced: QPI, HyperTransport, SLI.
- Use Cases: NVLink/Xe Link for AI/HPC; UALink for open-standards acceleration; SLI/QPI/HT for legacy systems.
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