AMD launches its 4th Generation EPYC processors with up to 96 Zen 4 cores

AMD delivers am EPYC 1-2 punch with stronger cores and more of them

Published: 10th November 2022 | Source: AMD | Author: Mark Campbell

AMD has launched their EPYC 9004 series of processors, offering users up to 96 Zen 4 cores and a tonne of new features

AMD has just launched their 4th Generation of EPYC Genoa processors, promising users higher levels of power efficiency, higher core counts, stronger levels of single-threaded performance, and support for the latest security and connectivity standards. With up to 96 Zen 4 cores, DDR5 memory support, and higher base/boost clock speeds, AMD's Zen 4 EPYC processors are incredibly powerful.

With their EPYC Genoa processors, AMD is claiming both performance leadership and efficiency leadership, promising owners of their latest EPYC processors higher performance levels and lower energy bills, two factors that are critical for every server farm.

AMD's Zen 4 EPYC processors also feature support for AVX-512, a feature that has long been an Intel exclusive within the server market. With AVX-512, AMD can now surpass Intel in workloads where they are traditionally ahead of AMD, successfully turning an Intel advantage into weakness for team Blue.

With their EPYC 9004 series processors, AMD will be offering their customers 16-core, 24-core, 32-core, 48-core, 64-core, 84-core, and 96-core CPU models. All of these CPU models will feature the same levels of I/O support with 12 channels of DDR5 memory and the same number of supported PCIe 5.0 lanes. AMD is not charging extra for full access to these features, unlike their rivals.

In server workloads, AMD has claimed that their new Zen 4 CPU architecture delivers a 14% IPC improvement across a geomean of 33 server workloads. These performance gains come from AMD's enlarge L2 cache with Zen 4, branch prediction improvements, front end improvements, and various other design tweaks.

These performance gains come from AMD's architectural changes with Zen 4, though it is worth noting that AMD's Zen 4 EPYC processors also feature higher clock speeds than their predecessors, giving AMD another avenue for increased single-threaded and multi-threaded CPU performance

When comparing per-core performance with Intel's 3rd Generation Xeon Scalable processors, AMD promises large performance uplifts with their 4th Generation EPYC processors. With AMD's Zen 4 CPU cores and enhanced CPU clock speeds, AMD's latest EPYC processors have given AMD a major per-core performance boost.

In 3D rendering workloads, AMD's 4th Generation EPYC processors are reportedly deliver a 2.4x increase in rendering speed using Arnold, thanks to AMD's boosted core counts with their EPYC Genoa processors and their increased per core performance. Intel's latest Xeon processors cannot offer core counts that even come close to what AMD has delivered with Genoa, making them the go-to company for multiple high compute workloads.

AMD were already gaining server CPU market share with their Zen 3 EPYC Milan processors. This trend is due to accelerate with their Zen 4 EPYC Genoa processors. With higher levels of single-threaded performance, greater levels of power efficiency, and higher core count CPU models, AMD has a huge opportunity to grow their market share within the enterprise CPU market, especially given Intel's slow product execution in recent years.

Architecturally, AMD's Zen 4 core design is in many regards tailored more for the server market than it is for the mainstream CPU market. Here, AMD's architectural changes make a lot of sense, and place AMD into a strong position against Intel. While Zen 4's design changes have delivered huge performance gains within their Ryzen 7000 series CPU models, their focus on higher all-core clock speeds, AVX-512, and front-end improvements make more sense for EPYC than they do for Ryzen.

With the move to DDR5 memory and twelve memory channels, AMD's Zen 4 EPYC Genoa processors can deliver increased bandwidth, increased power efficiency, and support higher levels of memory density. Four additional memory channels and the higher per DIMM memory capacities of DDR5 memory can allow AMD's EPYC Genoa servers to easily support 3TB of memory using twelve 256GB memory modules. Not bad for a server with a single processor.

Simply put, AMD's EPYC Genoa processors are a show of force from AMD, targeting what was once Intel's strongest product segment. If AMD can supply enough processors to keep up with demand, AMD's EPYC Genoa processors are sure to make AMD a lot of money over the next few quarters, especially once they start specialising with their Genoa-X and Bergamo processors in early 2023.

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