Intel Begins Sampling D270 AI GPUs, Swaps HBM for 480GB of LPDDR5X Memory

Intel has begun putting its new D270 data center GPU, formerly known as Crescent Island, into customers’ hands for testing ahead of broader availability. In a major architectural pivot, the D270 abandons high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for LPDDR5X, offering a 160 GB base configuration that OEM partners can expand up to 480 GB. The flagship chip delivers approximately 1.3 PFLOPs at FP8 precision with a 350W thermal design power and an estimated peak memory bandwidth of 1.5 TB/s. Built on the Xe3P architecture with 32 cores and 256 XMX matrix-math engines, the card uses a standard air-cooled PCIe Gen5 form factor to avoid exotic data center cooling retrofits. Intel is pitching the hardware strictly for AI inference and long-context agentic workloads rather than raw training performance, partnering with ASUS, Dell, and HPE for the commercial rollout.