AMD Shows of Epyc Datacenter CPU

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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AMD just got finished off showing off some of the basics about its EPYC datacenter processor. It is based on the Zen architecture goodness, and is in a nutshull, four Ryzen CPUs on a single package for server. So you get 32 Cores under one integrated heat spreader with support for 4TB of memory and 128 native PCIe lanes.

Pictures on the news page.
 
"Epyc"?
Cringeworthiest of names.

Interesting design though. Is there a shared on-board cache or will it have to go all the way out to the system RAM if a thread needs something running on another die?

Also, that is a big ass heatspreader.
 
Just imagine if that was PGA and had a bent pin or two somewhere during the install.
 
Yeah, the name is terrible, but hopefully it will be a performer. The additional ram channels allows servers to have a higher ram capacity, or higher capacity per size of dimm. For virtualization workloads and other memory intensive configurations, the price of memory will outweigh all the other components. Allowing us to use more of the cheaper smaller modules, or higher total capacity is a big deal. Its why we are going to be testing out the platform when its released.
 
That delidded shot reminds me of Presler's "dual" core CPUs *shudders*. I'm sure this isn't a rush job like those were though.
 
"Epyc"?
Cringeworthiest of names.

Interesting design though. Is there a shared on-board cache or will it have to go all the way out to the system RAM if a thread needs something running on another die?

Also, that is a big ass heatspreader.

I believe half of each dies (dice?), there are 4 dies (dice?) in this chip, PCI-E lanes are used for some inter-die 'fabric'. I would say hypertransport over PCI-E but I'm not an expert in this.
 
Any word on price or if this might make it to the workstation market or is it Server only?

I'm still on a Dell Precision 490 with two E5335s,and a 660ti... I think it might be time for an upgrade.
 
Now see, THIS is the desktop cpu that I would be excited about coming from amd.

Leave it to them, to totally miss out on my purchasing power... by not making it a desktop cpu....
 
Windows client has a limit of two processors so the answer will depend upon either Microsoft lifting that restriction or presenting itself to Windows as one or two CPUs.



Was a massive success in the DEC VMS sphere.

each cluster of dies shows up as a single cpu.. same design they used with magney-cour which was 2 x 6 core dies only with a better interconnect design between the dies. even the 12 and 16 core FX based server cpu's which no one bought used the same design.
 
It's good that AMD is trying to market to this area. From what I recently heard, several companies are switching to Ryzen servers for cost and the amount of cores you get.
 
They should be ideal datacenter cpu's for at least some workloads. Lots of cores and Lots of ram is pretty what every cloud provider wants. It's just proving they are reliable enough for datacenter use.
 
I'd be real curious if (and I know jack about CPU architecture beyond the basics) if they could pump up the number of threads per core in some odd configuration. Given that MS is licensing per-physical core now, bumping up the logical core count without changing the physical core number could actually lead to some cost savings if moving beyond 2 thread per core is even an realistic option.
 
If you're having a hard time fitting enough compute into your racks then this solution is amazing. Throw 4 of those into a 4 U chassis, get 128 Physical 256 Logical CPU's, along with 16TB of ram.

Makes by 36 core 72 thread 512gb ram box's seem small.

Not to mention at max load of ram I'd have.. 62 gig per logical core of ram.. holy eff.. the memory MIGHT be overkill. ;)

But the PCIE lanes are a freaking blessing to people that need REALLY HIGH SPEED Physical I/O. That's not me. I need low throughput but I achieve that with a couple of fiber cards going to my storage array. My use case right now has no place for that many PCIE lanes.

But imagine it from the case of serving desktop systems via VDI. You could have a bank of relatively high speed video cards being sliced and allocated to VDI users allowing 3d rendering virtually. Man that could get really sweet for render farms too.
 
I'd be real curious if (and I know jack about CPU architecture beyond the basics) if they could pump up the number of threads per core in some odd configuration. Given that MS is licensing per-physical core now, bumping up the logical core count without changing the physical core number could actually lead to some cost savings if moving beyond 2 thread per core is even an realistic option.


Right now Vmware and others are still pricing per CPU Socket. That makes these CPU's Sweet sweet free capacity. ;)
 
Gonna be tough to break into the server market. No sys admin ever got fired for buying Intel.

No, but they also haven't been fired for buying AMD either. We still have some AMD based servers cranking away. The only criteria to date is going ot be does it run x86 linux VMs with good cost per VM and good power and HVAC use per sqft.
 
Now to see what trickles down to a real-world desktop environment..
 
More or less than Threadripper? :p

Tough call. On one hand, "Epyc" sounds like some off brand gamer accessory. On the other, not only is "threadripper" a dumb name, but they couldn't even keep the "y" consistent. You'd think they'd have crammed one in there. "Threadrippyr"? It's not like they would have made it sound even worse.
 
I believe half of each dies (dice?), there are 4 dies (dice?) in this chip, PCI-E lanes are used for some inter-die 'fabric'. I would say hypertransport over PCI-E but I'm not an expert in this.

From what i remember, Each chip gives up 64 lanes of PCI-E to the inter-socket Fabric. So the dual socket system will have 128 lanes for devices but it's 64 from each socket. For inter-die fabric... I don't remember if AMD has detailed that.
 
I'd be real curious if (and I know jack about CPU architecture beyond the basics) if they could pump up the number of threads per core in some odd configuration. Given that MS is licensing per-physical core now, bumping up the logical core count without changing the physical core number could actually lead to some cost savings if moving beyond 2 thread per core is even an realistic option.

MS is getting greedy with their licensing changes. Instead of simply buying a server based on overall performance, I now need to consider how many cores.

It will likely push me to higher clock speeds and less cores on any new server purchas, just the opposite of my last couple servers (lower clock speeds but more cores)
 
Business are getting really good at understand the total cost of operation. Operations per Watt has a very heavy weighting factor when choosing servers. In many cases some cities are saying "you can' pump any more water for cooling".
 
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