SOLUTION BRIEF

Executive Summary
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Cloud Gaming Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Cloud Gaming Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Cloud Gaming Requirements, Systems Architecture . . . . . . . . . . 3

Cloud gaming is changing how people play computer games bydirectly streaming games onto players’ devices without gamedownload or software purchase. New services are emerging toaddress novel needs, such as live, low latency, video streamingof games to millions of online spectators. Cloud gaming brings
new opportunities to service providers and game developers.

Supermicro Solutions for Cloud Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Server Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Intel Data Center GPU, Flex Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Remote Management and Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Call for Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

SUPERMICROAs a global leader in high performance, high efficiency server
technology and innovation, we develop and provide end-to-end green
computing solutions to the data center, cloud computing, enterpriseIT, big data, HPC, and embedded markets. Our Building Block
Solutions® approach allows us to provide a broad range of SKUs andenables us to build and deliver application-optimized solutions based
upon your requirements.

© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

Cloud gaming services increase value to players and gamedevelopers. Players can immediately access more sophisticatedgames using computers, mobile, Android devices, andproprietary consoles without paying for the latest hardware. In
addition, game developers could reach more potential players
on cloud platforms by easily supporting more devices. Withadvancements and democratization in networking, visual cloud,and artificial intelligence technologies, the gaming market has a
CAGR of 13% 1 from 2021 to 2028.
Supermicro offers all the system components for cloud service
providers to build green, cost-effective, and profitable cloud
gaming infrastructure. This paper describes the requirements,
systems, and architecture to build cloud gaming infrastructure.

August 2022

1

Cloud Gaming Market
SUPERMICRO X12 WITH INTEL® DATACENTER GPU FLEX SERIES

SYS-620C-TN12R
2U Rackmount
Dual Intel® CPU
Up to 6 GPUs

SYS-210GP-DNR
2U, 2 server nodes
Single Intel® CPU / node
Up to 3 GPUs per node

Cloud Gaming is a fast-growing technology segment with rapid technology
changes, adoption, and increasing business opportunities for service providers
and game publishers.
Cloud gaming infrastructure serves a myriad of gaming devices - desktops,
laptops, mobile tablets, mobile phones, and dedicated game consoles. Soon,
virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) will also be
supported by the cloud gaming infrastructure, driven by technologicaladvancements in data center servers and human-computer interfaces in client
devices.
A particular fast-growing segment of cloud gaming is Multiplayer Online Games(MMOG), which account for 28% of the global market share in 20192.
Centralized servers in the cloud are needed to coordinate MMOG. Anothersignificant segment is mobile games, which account for 52% of the gaming3
market.

SYS-210GT-HNTF
2U, 4 server nodes
Single Intel® CPU
Up to 1 GPU per node2021 Global Games Market$180B

SYS-220BT-DNTR
2U, 2 server nodes
Dual Intel® CPU
Up to 4 GPUs per node

Console28%
Mobile Android
44%
PC - Others5%

SYS-420GP-TNR
4U Rackmount
Dual Intel® CPU
up to 10 GPUs

SBE-610P Series
6U, 10 Blade servers
Single Intel® CPU / blade
Up to 2 x GPU per blade

PC - Windows Mobile 15%
Others8%

Cloud Gaming Economics

orting Intel Xe-HPG accators.

© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

CUSTOMERS & REVENUENON-RECURRING COSTSOPERATING COSTS

Streaming quality,
Number of streams
supported, Low Latency

Systems with the latest
technologies

Hosting, network
accessNumber of games,
New games

Latest accelerators

Licenses, royalty
fees

August 2022

2

Cloud Gaming Requirements
•
•
•

•

•

•

•
•
•

Worldwide Distributed Internet Infrastructure: Multiple data centers with central gaming platforms that serve
numerous games and extensive caching and CDN infrastructure to support low latency content delivery to game users.
Reliable and manageable systems: Systems must be easily manageable and run reliably.
Systems options to support multiple architectures: Cloud gaming
infrastructure has the following key software and systems: game platform
services supporting game streaming, game servers, analytics, and AI. AIs
automatically generate images and respond to game plays.
Support for latest Accelerators: GPU accelerators are crucial todelivering cloud gaming, video streaming, virtual desktop, and AI services.
GPU Accelerators can efficiently encode and decode a high number of realtime video streams in high frame rates, using the royalty-free AV1
encoding, which also produces smaller files. By encoding video & graphics
content in mainstream codecs, including the latest royalty-free AV1, tolower the bitstream size, network streaming latency and cost can be
reduced.
Scalable architectures: Growing demand for new games drives thedevelopment of cloud gaming infrastructure, supporting high-speed,latest spine/leave Ethernet network architecture with scalable bandwidth.
Software platforms include Linux, Windows, virtualization, andcontainerization: Cloud gaming servers run on Linux or Windows,
supporting CPU & GPU virtualization, containerization & orchestration.
Cloud Gaming Software Infrastructure: Cloud gaming providers develop
and maintain their own gaming infrastructure.
Games and associated virtual goods are key to revenue generation and customer retention. Games are delivered
to mobile, computer, and consoles.
User Experience: Low latency, responsiveness, high frame rates, and high visual fidelity graphics. Multiplayer gaming
demands real-time response rates and supports multiple game engines.

Cloud Gaming Systems Architecture•••

Gaming Platform in Cloud Data
Center delivers game engines,
updates to games, and analytics.
Edge Computing delivers ultra-low
latency streaming, highperformance rendering, and datacollection to improve the platform
QoS.
Clients deliver the gaming
experience to each person. A client
can be an Android device, acomputer, or a console.

© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

August 2022

3

Supermicro Solutions for Cloud Gaming
Working with Intel®, Supermicro has identified multiple server solutions that offer the best tradeoffs to provide cloud gamingarchitecture. These systems support the latest Intel Data Center GPU Flex series accelerators. There are many support choices
for SATA and NVMe storage, and support for high-speed networking up from 1 gigabit/s to 200 gigabit/s ethernet networks.
Furthermore, these systems have optional TPM 2.0 security and Root-of-Trust hardware security features. With built-in out-ofband management, systems administrators can easily manage these servers with standard IPMI or Redfish interfaces. Support
for Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat Linux, open-source Linux, and Windows Servers are available for these servers.
To address the cloud gaming infrastructure, Supermicro offers the following:

Requirements

Supermicro Offering

Reliable and manageable
systems• Supermicro systems have proven reliability with built-in redundancies, including
power, cooling• Systems come standard with remote manageability, support for IPMI, and Redfish
v1.8• Support for TPM 2.0 and Root-of-trust security

Systems options to support
multiple architectures• Choice of recommended systems to build the cloud gaming infrastructure, offering
tradeoff for support for the maximum number of accelerators to rack density to
cost-effectiveness• Choice of other platforms to run analytics and AI• Selection of different platforms to support database

Support for latest accelerators• Support Intel® Data Center GPU Flex Series Accelerators.

Scalable architectures• Extensive support for latest PCIe GEN4 technologies that support the fastest I/O• Extensive support for networking from 1 gigabit/s to 200 gigabit/s, with support fora large number of network connectivity• Support up to a maximum of 10 Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series cards in SYS
420GP TNR
• Supermicro offers support max number of servers in a single rack appropriate to
the power and cooling available at the cloud gaming providers• Supermicro can scale the number of racks to support one or more data centers• Supermicro offers networking technologies up to 400 gigabit/s to support full scalespine/leave network architecture

Software Platforms forvirtualization andcontainerization• Supermicro systems are certified to support the Linux and Windows environment,
as well as support for virtualization and containerization

Cloud gaming software
infrastructure and Games• Supermicro works with Intel, which is growing the ecosystem for cloud gaming
software infrastructures and game availability

CPU / GPU Ratio• Gameplay and Content Delivery Networks require CPU processing• Video transcoding, encoding, and graphics display use GPU© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

August 2022

4

Edge Computing

SBE-610P Series

SYS-210GT-HNTF

High Density

High Density

Cloud Data Center

SYS-620C-TN12R

SYS-420GP-TNR

SYS-220BT-DNTR

SYS-210GP-DNR

Server Specifications

SupermicroServerForm Factor, PowerCPU, PCIeIntel Data Center GPU Flex
Series4U GPU SuperServer
SYS-420GP-TNR

4U, Redundant power

Dual 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable,
270W,
10 x PCIe Gen 4 x16 slots

10 x Flex Series 140 or 170

2U 2-NodeSYS-210GP-DNR

2U, 2-node, each node 1U
Shared redundant power

Per node: Single 3rd Gen Intel Xeon
Scalable processor, 270W
3 x PCIe Gen 4 x16 slots per node

3 x Flex Series 140 or 170 (per node)
Total: 6 x GPUs per system

2U CloudDC
SYS-620C-TN12R

2U, single or redundant
power option

Dual 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable
processor, 270W
4 x PCIe Gen 4 x16 slots

6 x Flex Series 140 or 4 x Flex
Series 170

2U 4-NodeGrandTwin™
SYS-210GT-HNTF

2U, 4-node,
redundant power

Per node: Single 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon®
Scalable processor,
2 x PCIe Gen 4 x16 slots

2 x Flex Series 140 (per node)
Total: 8 x Flex Series 140 per system

2U 2-Node BigTwin®
SYS-220BT-DNTR

2U, 2-node,
Redundant power

Per node: Dual 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon®
Scalable processor
4 x PCIe Gen 4 x16 slots

2 x Flex Series 140 or 170 (per node)
Total: 4 x GPUs per system

6U Blade Server
SBE-610P Series

2U, single or redundant
power option

Per blade: Single 3rd Gen Intel® Xeon®
Scalable processor
2 x PCIe Gen 4 x16 slots

2 x Flex Series 140 or 170 (per blade)Total: 20 x GPUs per system© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

August 2022

5

Intel® Data Center GPU Flex Series Specification
Intel® has significantly innovated to develop 2 data center GPU accelerators to provide the best operations and performance for
Cloud Gaming and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. Also, Intel® has added support for the royalty-free AV1 codec. The AV1 codec
has been demonstrated to provide lower bandwidth requirements to transmit higher quality streaming graphics. Being royaltyfree versus HVEC codecs, the use of Intel Data Center GPUs significantly reduces costs for the Cloud Gaming providers.
Intel Data Center GPU
Flex Series

Flex Series 140

Flex Series 170

Memory w/ ECC

12GB, 1750 GT/s

16GB, 2250GT/s

428 transcode streams H.265 1080p60 1:1

2
14 transcode streams H.265 1080p60 1:1

Fixed function Media
units
AV1 Encode/Decode

Implemented in Hardware

Systolic Arrays (AIInference)

1x Systolic Array

2.5x Systolic Arrays

Long Life Support

5 years, 80% active at base frequency, 20% idle

5 years, 80% active at base frequency, 20% idle

Operating Systems

Ubuntu Linux, Debian Linux, RHEL, Windows Server 2019, 2022

Remote Management and Security
Supermicro systems provide out-of-band and in-band monitoring. Using out-of-band IPMI and Redfish
management, data center systems administrators efficiently manage the health and operation of eachserver in the clusters. The servers also come with optional TPM 2.0 and Root of Trust security features.

Conclusion
Supermicro systems with Intel Data Center GPU Flex Series offer comprehensive scalability options.
Please contact your Supermicro sales representative for more information.

For More Information, please visit:https://www.supermicro.com/en/accelerators/intel
https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/rackmounthttps://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/discrete-gpus/data-center-gpu/flexseries/overview.html
References
1 – Gaming Market Growth
2 – Global Cloud Gaming Market Share© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

August 20226

3 – Gaming Market Segments© 2022 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved

August 20227