AMD’s latest AI GPU flagship, the MI300X, competes with NVIDIA’s H100 and upcoming H200 with rumors of the MI325X, MI350, and MI400 models. Tests by Chips and Cheese found that the MI300X often outperforms the H100 in low and AI tiers, with impressive cache performance due to its unique architecture.
The MI300X’s cDNA 3 architecture boasts four caches, including a 32KB L1 cache, 16KB scalar cache, 4MB L2 cache, and a massive 256MB Infinity Cache. Cache benchmarks show superior bandwidth compared to the H100 at all levels. Additionally, the AMD GPU excels in local memory and VRAM performance but lags in memory latency.
Compute performance tests demonstrate the MI300X’s dominance over the H100, exceeding speeds by up to 5x. While the H100 outperforms in certain workloads, the MI300X shows significant improvements over its predecessor, the MI210.
In AI inference tests, the MI300X surpasses the H100 and GH200, showcasing superior performance and memory capacity. The MI300X handles various input/output lengths with FP16 exceptionally well. Despite some limitations in testing hardware, the MI300X consistently outperforms the H100 in AI applications.
Overall, the MI300X’s cache, bandwidth, and compute performance impress, positioning it as a strong competitor to the H100. However, further independent testing is needed to understand the full capabilities of both GPUs, especially in large-scale installations. Software optimizations and ecosystem support also play a crucial role in determining overall performance, with Nvidia historically leading in this area with CUDA.
While the MI300X shows promise in challenging Nvidia’s hardware dominance, more comprehensive testing and optimization are essential for a complete evaluation. The results highlight the potential of AMD’s new architecture but also emphasize the importance of considering scalability, software support, and ecosystem integration in determining overall performance in real-world scenarios. Further testing with a wider range of hardware configurations and software optimizations could provide a more definitive comparison between the MI300X and H100 GPUs.
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https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/amd-mi300x-performance-compared-with-nvidia-h100
