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The AMD EPYC 7000 Series Processor Tech Report

AMD just launched the AMD EPYC 7000 series processors. Formerly known as AMD Naples, it boasts up to 32 AMD Zen processor cores, and challenges the Intel Xeon’s dominance in the datacenter. After a sneak peek at their Computex 2017 press conference, AMD finally revealed the EPYC 7000 series processors. Let’s take a look!

 

The AMD EPYC 7000 Series Processor

Like Ryzen, the EPYC processor is based on their new Zen microarchitecture. Designed for servers, the EPYC processor offers up to 32 processor cores, an integrated high-speed DDR4 memory controller and a new high-speed coherent interconnect. AMD now reveals that it also comes with an embedded security subsystem.

Here is a summary of the EPYC processor’s key features :

  • Supports up to 32 AMD Zen cores., each capable of handling 2 simultaneous threads.
  • [adrotate group=”2″]Integrated DDR4 memory controller with 8 memory channels, each supporting two DIMMs. That’s a total of 16 DIMMs per processor socket, allowing for up to 2 TB of memory. A 2-socket server will support up to 32 DIMMs, with a total memory capacity of 4 TB.
  • The EPYC processor is fully integrated with high-speed I/O including 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
  • Because the EPYC is a complete SoC, there is no need for a separate chipset, reducing cost and power consumption.
  • In a 2-socket system, two EPYC processors communicate with each other via the AMD Infinity Fabric coherent interconnect. Even though each EPYC processor has 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, it is limited to 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes in a 2-socket design.  The 2P EPYC system will have a total of 128 PCI 3.0 lanes, not 256.

In addition, AMD revealed the first EPYC family of processors – the EPYC 7000 Series, with nine processors divided into four segments. They also introduced three EPYC processor variants designed for single socket servers.

  • EPYC 7601, 7551, 7551P and 7501 processors have 32 cores and a peak TDP of 170-180 W.
  • EPYC 7451, 7401 and 7401P processors have 24 cores and a peak TDP of 170-180 W.
  • EPYC 7351, 7351P, 7301 and 7281 processors have 16 cores and a peak TDP of 170 W.
  • EPYC 7251 processor has 8 cores and a peak TDP of 120 W.

 

The AMD EPYC 7000 Series Presentation

If you have the time, check out this 103-minute presentation on the EPYC 7000 Series processors by Dr. Lisa Su and Forrest Norrod from AMD, as well as their partners. Dr. Lisa also comes out at the end to reveal the AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 accelerator, that we revealed several months earlier.

Next Page >  EPYC 7000 Series Performance & Key Advantages

 

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EPYC 7000 Series Processor Performance

AMD also revealed their internal benchmarks for the EPYC 7000 series processors :[adrotate group=”2″]

Single Socket AMD EPYC 7601 Server

  • SPECiut_rate2006 : 1200
  • SPECfp_rate2006 : 943

Two Socket AMD EPYC 7601 Server

  • SPECiut_rate2006 : 1390
  • SPECfp_rate2006 : 1330

AMD compared the two processor performance of the EPYC 7601, showing that it beat the Intel Xeon E5-2699A v4 in integer compute by 47%, and floating point compute by 75%.

 

Price Performance Advantage

AMD also took pains to point out that the price performance advantage the EPYC 7000 Series processors have over their Intel Xeon rivals, in both the 2-socket and single-socket segments.

 

Data Security Advantage

Other than raw computing performance and support for a truckload of memory, EPYC processors also offer an integrated hardware security subsystem. This allows the EPYC processors to deliver full memory encryption and secure multi-tenancy for data domain with no application impact.

 

Compatibility & Support

Finally, AMD wants everyone to know that the EPYC is an x86 processor and readily supports all x86 applications in the market. They have also performed extensive tests with industry partners like Microsoft, VMware and Red Hat.

They have also lined up considerable support from their server partners to deliver AMD EPYC solutions to customers worldwide.

Next Page > The Official Series Press Release & Slides

 

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AMD EPYC 7000 Series Processor Press Release

AUSTIN, Texas — June 20, 2017 — AMD (NASDAQ: AMD), and a global ecosystem of server partners, today marked a new era in the datacenter with the launch of AMD EPYC 7000 series high-performance datacenter processors. AMD was joined by multiple customers and partners at the global launch event in presenting a wide array of systems, performance demonstrations, and customer testimonials. The innovative, record-setting EPYC design, with up to 32 high-performance “Zen” cores and an unparalleled feature set, delivers greater performance than the competition across a full range of integer, floating point, memory bandwidth, and I/O benchmarks and workloads.

“With our EPYC family of processors, AMD is delivering industry-leading performance on critical enterprise, cloud, and machine intelligence workloads,” said Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD. “EPYC processors offer uncompromising performance for single-socket systems while scaling dual-socket server performance to new heights, outperforming the competition at every price point. We are proud to bring choice and innovation back to the datacenter with the strong support of our global ecosystem partners.”

The world’s largest server manufacturers introduced products based on EPYC 7000-series processors at today’s launch, including HPE, Dell, ASUS, Gigabyte, Inventec, Lenovo, Sugon, Supermicro, Tyan, and Wistron. Primary hypervisor and server operating system providers Microsoft, Red Hat, and VMware showcased optimized support for EPYC, while key server hardware ecosystem partners Mellanox, Samsung Electronics, and Xilinx were also featured in EPYC-optimized platforms.

Cloud Datacenter and Enterprise Customers

Datacenter and cloud service providers also welcomed EPYC to the market today. Members of the “Super 7” datacenter services providers, including Baidu and Microsoft Azure, as well as 1&1, Bloomberg, Dropbox and LexisNexis, all voiced their support at launch.

Record-Setting EPYC Performance

The excitement around EPYC is driven by multiple record-setting server benchmarks achieved by EPYC-powered one-socket and two-socket systems.

AMD EPYC processors set several performance records, including:

  • Two-Socket Server
    • EPYC 7601-based system scored 2360 on SPECint_rate2006, higher than any other two-socket system score
  • One-Socket Server
    • EPYC 7601-based system scored 1200 on SPECint_rate2006, higher than any other mainstream one-socket x86-based system score
    • EPYC 7601-based system scored 943 on SPECfp_rate2006, higher than any other one-socket system score

All EPYC processors combine innovative security features, enterprise class reliability, and support a full feature-set. An EPYC 7601 CPU-based one-socket system shifts expectations for single socket server performance, helping lower total-cost-of-ownership (TCO), providing up to 20% CapEx savings compared to the Intel Xeon E5-2660 v4-based two-socket system. At every targeted price point for two-socket processors, EPYC outperforms the competition, with up to 70% more performance in the eight hundred dollar price band and up to 47% more performance at the high-end of the market of four thousand dollars or more.

EPYC Product Overview

  • A highly scalable System on Chip (SoC) design ranging from 8-core to 32-core, supporting two high-performance threads per core.
  • Industry-leading memory bandwidth across the line-up, with 8 channels of memory on every EPYC device. In a two-socket server, support for up to 32 DIMMS of DDR4 on 16 memory channels, delivering up to 4 terabytes of total memory capacity.
  • Unprecedented support for integrated, high-speed I/O with 128 lanes of PCIe 3 on every product
  • A highly-optimized cache structure for high-performance, energy efficient compute
  • AMD Infinity Fabric coherent interconnect linking EPYC CPUs in a two-socket system
  • Dedicated security hardware
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The Official Presentation Slides

Suggested Reading

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The 32-Core AMD Naples CPU Tech Report

Just 3 months ago, we revealed to you the first AMD Naples + Radeon Instinct reference design. Yet, details were scarce. Now that AMD has finally launched their Ryzen 7 desktop processors, they are finally ready to reveal details of the AMD Naples CPU.

 

 

AMD Naples Revealed!

Like Ryzen, the AMD Naples CPU is based on their brand-new Zen microarchitecture. Designed for servers, the Naples CPU offers up to 32 processor cores, an integrated high-speed DDR4 memory controller and a new high-speed coherent interconnect.

These four slides summarises the Naples CPU’s key features :

  • 32 AMD Zen cores., each capable of handling 2 simultaneous threads.
  • Integrated DDR4 memory controller with 8 memory channels, each supporting two DIMMs. That’s a total of 16 DIMMs per processor socket, allowing for up to 2 TB of memory. A 2-socket server will support up to 32 DIMMs, with a total memory capacity of 4 TB.
  • The Naples CPU is fully integrated with high-speed I/O including 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
  • Because the Naples is a complete SoC, there is no need for a separate chipset, reducing cost and power consumption.

In a 2-socket system, two Naples CPUs will communicate with each other via the AMD Infinity Fabric coherent interconnect. Even though each Naples CPU technically supports 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, it is limited to 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes in a 2-socket design.

A 2-socket Naples server would offer 64 processor cores that can handle 128 simultaneous cores, and up to 4 TB of DDR4 memory (32 x 128 GB DIMMs). Just how fast is such a server? Let’s find out…

Next Page > The AMD Naples CPU Performance, AMD Naples + Radeon Instinct

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The AMD Naples CPU Performance

AMD benchmarked the performance of a 2-socket Naples server against a 2-socket Intel Xeon E5-2699A v4 server, with the following specifications. The workload was Seismic Analysis, involving iterations of 3D wave equations.

When they were compared with similar number of cores (44), the Naples CPU was almost twice as fast as the Intel Xeon E5-2699A v4 CPU.

But when they unleashed all 64-cores in that 2-socket Naples server, it is now 2.5X faster than the Intel Xeon E5-2699A v4.

In this final test, they tested both servers with a 4x larger dataset – 4 billion samples, instead of just 1 billion samples. Due to its limited memory channels, the Intel Xeon E5-2699A v4 is unable to support enough memory to load the dataset.

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AMD Naples + Radeon Instinct

Naples is more than just a server CPU to AMD. Its integrated support for 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes allows a single Naples CPU to support up to 4 AMD Radeon Instinct accelerators.

Be sure to check out their first AMD Naples + Radeon Instinct reference design.

Next Page > The AMD Naples Pricing & Availability, The Presentation Slides

 

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The AMD Naples Pricing & Availability

You may wonder why AMD compared the Naples CPU against the 22-core Intel Xeon E5-2699A v4, instead of a more powerful processor like the Intel Xeon E7-8893 v4. We suspect it is because they are going to price the Naples CPU against the Xeon E5-2699A v4, which costs US$ 4,938.

Imagine how well it will sell if it’s priced at the same or slightly lower price point than the Xeon E5-2699A v4, while offering 45% more cores, 60% more I/O capacity and 122% more memory bandwidth. If we have to guess, we would think that AMD will finally price the Naples CPU at around $4,000 – a 20% discount on the Xeon E5-2699A v4.

More importantly, AMD appears to be on track for a Q2 2017 launch for the Naples CPU. We will keep you updated!

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The AMD Naples Presentation Slides

Here is the complete set of slides used by Forrest Norrod, SVP and GM of the AMD Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group.

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The First AMD Naples + Radeon Instinct Reference Design Revealed!

We had earlier revealed the upcoming AMD Ryzen desktop processor, and the AMD Radeon Instinct compute accelerators. But that was not all they revealed at the AMD Tech Summit held in Sonoma last month. AMD also showcased the world’s first AMD Naples and Radeon Instinct reference design!

This is a compact 2U (19″) server with two AMD Naples processors, and two Radeon Instinct accelerators. Check it out!

 

What Is AMD Naples?

Formerly known as Summit Ridge, the AMD Ryzen is an octa-core desktop processor that promises to match, if not beat, the Intel Core i7-6900K in both performance and power consumption. Like Ryzen, the AMD Naples processor is based on the AMD Zen microarchitecture. But instead of having just 8 cores, AMD Naples is a server-class processor that boasts 32 cores!

Like Intel Xeon processors, the AMD Naples processor can process two threads per core. So the 32-core AMD Naples processor can handle up to 64 threads simultaneously. It will also reportedly feature a massive 512 MB L3 cache.

Compared that to the top-of-the-line Intel Xeon E7-8890 v4 processor that only has 24 cores and handles up to 48 threads simultaneously, and only has a 60 MB L3 cache.

If the AMD Naples processor delivers the same performance and power consumption we saw with AMD Ryzen, then it should deliver at least 33% better compute performance than the Intel Xeon E7-8890 v4 processor, and blow it out of the water in memory performance. Now that will be a killer server CPU.

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Compute Boost With Radeon Instinct

If the potentially superior AMD Naples compute performance does not impress you, the reference design also showcased the new AMD Radeon Instinct accelerators. Their 2U server reference design featured what appears to be two AMD Radeon Instinct MI8 SFF accelerators.

The Radeon Instinct MI8 is a passively-cooled accelerator that requires only 175 W of power. Each MI8 accelerator delivers 8.2 TFLOPS of FP16 compute performance with 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth. So two of them will offer over 16 TFLOPs of FP16 compute performance in this 2U server.

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