Finally, AMD launches the 2nd gen EPYC CPUs based on Zen 2 architecture, up to 64 cores and 128 threads for $6,950
The Red team has already announced its flagship EPYC Rome CPUs a year ago but all we knew about them that they are coming. But finally, they are launched, 1 month later to the launch of very successful Ryzen 3000 processors.
The new EPYC CPUs are based on AMD’s revolutionary Zen 2 platform. We already have seen how capable these server end CPUs are and now AMD has made the CPUs official and their performances as well.
In our present world, most of the data centres and cloud servers are powered by Intel Xeon chips which have very high pricing though being based on the same old 14nm architecture. But Intel has a legacy and their products have certain software advantages that developers have infused in the past years.
AMD though has not been competitive to Intel in the server market at all. So, in 2017 the Red team brought the first EPYC CPUs coded as Naples based on 14nm Zen microarchitecture. Though AMD could not create huge market attention still at least they stepped into the data centre market.
Then AMD could always create their next EPYC CPUs on Zen+ microarchitecture but they chose a difficult path of directly shifting to Zen 2 microarchitecture based on 7nm process. This has totally changed the thinking of the server market, creating world records with its amazing performance.
Obviously the higher clock speeds, ~15% uplift to instructions per cycle (IPC) throughput, larger cache memory, a fast move to PCIe gen 4.0 has made EPYC CPUs superior to Intel and the pricing of these CPUs has made the market leaders in jeopardy.
The AMD EPYC Rome CPUs
The EPYC Rome CPUs have a unique design, with up to eight 7nm compute die each consisting 8 cores, connected via the Infinity Fabric to a central 14nm I/O die that houses the memory and PCIe controllers.
The Zen 2 architecture will provide up to:
- 2X the compute power per node,
- improved execution pipeline,
- doubled core density, and
- will use half the energy per operation.
The EPYC server line-up, codenamed as Rome, scales up to 64 cores and 128 threads. Now, this will help AMD’s enterprise customers to equip a single dual-socket motherboard with up to 128 cores and 256 threads. Rome is also the first PCIe 4.0 compatible CPU, that offers double the bandwidth per channel.
The EPYC ‘Rome’ server-end processors will be equipped with an eight-channel DDR4 memory controller, which has been housed inside the I/O die which present in the centre. This improved design will help each chiplet to access the memory with equal latency. The multiple cores have support up to 4TB of DDR4 memory per socket.
Being the first processors to support the PCIe 4.0 standard, they have support up to 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes. This makes the EPYC Rome processors an ideal companion for AMD’s Radeon Instinct MI60 and MI50 GPU accelerators that utilize the PCIe 4.0 x16 interface.
AMD will also continue to provide two-socket servers (2P), and models for single-socket servers (denoted by the single “P” suffix). The EPYC Rome CPUs starts all the way from 8 cores and 16 threads up to an x86-industry-leading 64 cores and 128 threads.
AMD offers more cores and threads in every segment and up to three times more L3 cache at drastically lower pricing.
| Model | OPN | Cores | Threads | Base Clock | Boost Clock | L3 Cache | TDP |
| EPYC 7742 | 100-0000000053 | 64 | 128 | 2.25 GHz | 3.40 GHz | 256MB | 225W / 240W |
| EPYC 7702 | 100-0000000038 | 64 | 128 | 2.00 GHz | 3.35 GHz | 256MB | 180W / 200W |
| EPYC 7552 | 100-0000000076 | 48 | 96 | 2.20 GHz | 3.35 GHz | 192MB | 180W / 200W |
| EPYC 7542 | 100-0000000075 | 32 | 64 | 2.90 GHz | 3.40 GHz | 128MB | 225W / 240W |
| EPYC 7502 | 100-0000000054 | 32 | 64 | 2.50 GHz | 3.35 GHz | 128MB | 180W / 200W |
| EPYC 7452 | 100-0000000057 | 32 | 64 | 2.35 GHz | 3.35 GHz | 128MB | 155W / 180W |
| EPYC 7402 | 100-0000000046 | 24 | 48 | 2.80 GHz | 3.35 GHz | 128MB | 180W / 200W |
| EPYC 7352 | 100-0000000077 | 24 | 48 | 2.30 GHz | 3.20 GHz | 128MB | 155W / 180W |
| EPYC 7302 | 100-0000000043 | 16 | 32 | 2.80 GHz | 3.30 GHz | 128MB | 155W / 180W |
Another fact also remains that though base clock speeds of these CPUs range from 2.0 GHz to 3.2 GHz as we go up the stack we see a bump in boost clocks ranging from 3.0 GHz to 3.4 GHz.
AMD’s power-aware boost algorithms surely help to get high multi-core frequencies even on the monstrous 64 core EPYC 7742 that is able to sustain a beastly 3.2 GHz on all cores.
The pricing of these CPUs will surely make Intel jealous as the top-of-the-line EPYC 7742 just cost $6,950 compared to Intel’s Xeon Platinum 8280 giving half the performance at a price of $10k.
AMD has just made a beautiful price list ranging from $450 to the highest of $7k, which is pretty low considering the performance these CPUs are offering. They have made separate 8, 12/16, 24/32 and 48/64-core segments, for a total of 19 SKUs.
AMD has built Spectre v2 mitigations into the silicon, that reduces the performance impact. AMD has even patched IBRS and IBPB, along with Spectre v4 and Rome SoCs supports various other secure memory encryption features.
Being 40% cheaper than Intel Xeon CPUs and topping the performance charts, AMD looks to take a giant leap in the server market in the coming days.
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