AMD Launches 2nd Gen EPYC Processors for the Datacenter

Tsing

The FPS Review
Staff member
Joined
May 6, 2019
Messages
11,225
Points
83
AMD has announced its 2nd gen EPYC processors, which feature up to 64 cores. The company says these "provide 2X the performance compared to the previous generation and deliver an estimated 25% to 50% lower TCO [total cost of ownership] than competitive offerings."

There are nineteen SKUs in total, ranging from the 8C/16T 7232P to the 64C/128T 7742. Google has already begun deploying these in its datacenters, while Twitter will be doing so shortly. HPE, Lenovo, and Dell have also announced new servers and systems utilizing 2nd gen EPYC.

“Today, we set a new standard for the modern datacenter with the launch of our 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors that deliver record-setting performance and significantly lower total cost of ownership across a broad set of workloads,” said Dr. Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD. “Adoption of our new leadership server processors is accelerating with multiple new enterprise, cloud and HPC customers choosing EPYC processors to meet their most demanding server computing needs.
 
Hot ****. 128 threads on a single socket!! That's ****ing impressive!! Any data on how fast they are? 2.5ghz at that density would be a godelsend to my VMware licensing!!!
 
It makes me hopeful for the next generation Threadripper. I don't like doing predictions, but if they can boost to 3.4GHz with 64 cores, then a 32c/64t Threadripper should in theory be able to hit 4.0GHz or so. The 2990WX had a TDP of 250w, the Epyc Rome 64c/128t CPU has a TDP of 225w. So I'm hoping that AMD will use the extra power budget to push the clocks higher.
 
Hot ****. 128 threads on a single socket!! That's ****ing impressive!! Any data on how fast they are? 2.5ghz at that density would be a godelsend to my VMware licensing!!!

Anandtech and some other sites did actual reviews on the chips. TDLR: Smokes Intel badly for half the cost. Intel has a TDP advantage, but not if you consider core density and performance per watt. Intel still commands a clock speed advantage so its single-threaded performance is still better, but that's in a use case where this is a non-issue for AMD. Intel does AVX512 and AMD doesn't, so there is that. But for the most part, Epyc (Rome) sweeps Intel across the board in virtually every test you can think of.

AMD claims that the Epyc 7742 (3.4GHZ, 64c/128t) is the most powerful x86 processor in the world. I'm inclined to believe it, single threaded performance not withstanding.
 
Last edited:
I only want ok single thread performance. And do we have data on pcie lanes? Because that's a big boon too for multiple nic cards and hba cards.
 
128 PCIe lanes like its predecessor.
 
128 PCIe lanes like its predecessor.

See now that's pretty **** kick butt. 128 PCIe lanes from a single CPU. HUmmm are they PCIE 4 or 5 or 3? I need to use my google foo.. I'll be back in a moment.

Ok google time done. PCIE Gen 4. There seems to be some caveats around that though. So on that I'm a bit curious. Otherwise.. WOW that's a beast.

I bet MS wants people to adopt those BAD. Just think of the SQL Enterprise Licensing cost! lol. (Though server consolidation is truly a thing.)
 
They are PCI-Express Gen 4.0 compliant.
 
Become a Patron!
Back
Top