YouTube building its video-transcoding chip: Report

Google's Jeff Calow said the Argos chip has brought "up to 20-33x improvements in computing efficiency compared to our previous optimised system, which was running software on traditional servers." The VCU package is a full-length PCI-E card and looks a lot like a graphics card. A board has two Argos ASIC chips buried under a gigantic, passively cooled aluminium heat sink.

Google has developed a custom chip, Argos, for YouTube to process videos much more efficiently.

Google's Jeff Calow said the Argos chip has brought "up to 20-33x improvements in computing efficiency compared to our previous optimised system, which was running software on traditional servers."

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The VCU package is a full-length PCI-E card and looks a lot like a graphics card. A board has two Argos ASIC chips buried under a gigantic, passively cooled aluminium heat sink.

There's even what looks like an 8-pin power connector on the end because PCI-E just isn't enough power, reports Ars Technica.

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Google provided a chip diagram that lists 10 "encoder cores" on each chip, with Google's white paper adding that "all other elements are off-the-shelf IP blocks."

Google said that "each encoder core can encode 2160p in real time, up to 60 FPS (frames per second) using three reference frames," the report said.

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The cards are specifically designed to slot into Google's warehouse-scale computing system, it added.

Each compute cluster in YouTube's system will house a section of dedicated "VCU machines" loaded with the new cards, saving Google from having to crack open every server and load it with a new card.

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