AMD recently announced the new AMD EPYC Milan CPUs based on their new Zen 3 architecture and has been well received among enthusiasts as well as enterprises. To extend that here we will discuss why AMD has termed these EPYC 7003 Series Processors as the best server processors?
AMD EPYC 7003 Series Processors have up to 64 “Zen 3” cores per processor and introduce new per-core cache memory levels while continuing to offer the PCIe® 4 connectivity class-leading memory bandwidth that defined the EPYC 7002 series CPUs.
3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors also include modern security features through AMD Infinity Guard, supporting a new Secure Encrypted Virtualization-Secure Nested Paging (SEV-SNP). SEV-SNP expands the existing SEV features on EPYC processors, adding strong memory integrity protection capabilities to prevent malicious hypervisor-based attacks by creating an isolated execution environment.
Already we know AMD has achieved a significant 19% IPC uplift with the new Zen 3 architecture and so the new Milan chips also take advantage of that.
As you see the architectural changes in between AMD’s Zen 2 and Zen 3 architecture – there’s 2 times the L3 cache used which can now be accessed directly by per core, which in turn helps increasing the thoughput. All of these SMT enabled cores communicate better with the cache, helping to enhance Enterprise and Cloud workloads as well as decreasing the memory latency.
In AMD’s Zen 3 overview for EPYC Milan chips, we see key changes in Cache memory, also huge changes in terms of decode and execution capabilities. New 3 memory ops per cycle, 4 instructions per cycle and 6 ops per cycle dispatched to integer or floating-point.
In Zen 3, you now have 3 loads and 2 stores per cycle compared to only 2 loads and 1 store per cycle we saw with AMD’s Zen 2 architecture. The improved branch predictor bandwidth, higher load and store bandwidth, 6 table walkers and other changes, does indeed make a huge difference with new EPYC Milan CPUs.
Not only improvements, AMD has also brought new features to the new 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors like the new L3 cache system that significantly improves the performance, new security features, now supports 4, 6, or 8 memory channels configs which can be a huge relief for OEMs now.
Also, much like its desktop counterparts, AMD is making the new EPYC Milan chips drop-in compatible with last-gen motherboards only with a BIOS update.
New AMD EPYC 7003 Series Processors have up to 64 “Zen 3” cores per processor and introduce new levels of per-core cache memory while continuing to offer the PCIe® 4 connectivity and class-leading memory bandwidth4that defined the EPYC 7002 series CPUs.
These new processors enable faster time to discovery with more I/O and memory throughput and powerful “Zen 3” cores that deliver up to twice the performance for HPC workloads compared to the competition.
They also increase transactional database processing by up to 19%, improve Hadoop big data analytic sorts by up to 60% with 61% better price to performance than the competition, and offer superior performance for flexible Hyperconverged Infrastructure-all of which help CIOs turn data into actionable insights faster.
As we saw in our last article, these new AMD EPYC™ 7003 series CPUs demolishes the competition totally, and the entire lineup gives more than double the performance that Intel provides with its best Xeon Gold processors. Whether it High-Performance Computing, Cloud application or Enterprise workloads, AMD is miles faster than Intel’s latest offering.
The best part is that AMD is providing better value for the money you want to spend on making a server, as you see in the slide, to deliver 25,000 units of Integer performance, you need 63x Intel Xeon 6258R servers while for AMD you need only 32x AMD EPYC 7763 servers.
You also see for Intel you need 4 server racks and for AMD you need only 3 server racks, i.e. almost 49% fewer servers, 25% less space, 35% less power and 35% lower 4 years TCO value.
This means investing in making a new AMD EPYC server will be a better option down the road and this is the reason why the new AMD EPYC Milan CPUs are called the best server processors now in the market.