Sizing Up Servers: Intel's Skylake-SP Xeon versus AMD's EPYC 7000 - The Server CPU Battle of the Decade?
by Johan De Gelas & Ian Cutress on July 11, 2017 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Intel
- Xeon
- Enterprise
- Skylake
- Zen
- Naples
- Skylake-SP
- EPYC
Pricing Comparison: AMD versus Intel
We are all hoping that the renewed competition between Intel and AMD results in more bang for the buck. Intel just launched about 50 SKUs, so we made a list of those that will go head-to-head with AMD's already announced EPYC SKUs. On average, the Intel SKUs will priced slightly higher, reflecting the fact that Intel believes buyers are willing to pay a bit more for the vendor with the better track record.
| AMD EPYC Processors (2P) | Intel Xeon Processoors (2-8P) | ||||||
| AMD EPYC SKU |
Cores |
Freq (GHz) Base-Max |
Price | Intel Xeon SKU |
Cores | Freq (GHz) Base-Max |
Price |
| Xeon 8180 (205W) | 28 | 2.5-3.8 | $10009 | ||||
| Xeon 8176M (165W) | 28 | 2.1-3.8 | $11722 | ||||
| Xeon 8176 (165W) | 28 | 2.1-3.8 | $8719 | ||||
| EPYC 7601 (180W) |
32 | 2.2 -3.2 | $4200 | Xeon 8160 (150W) | 24 | 2.1-3.7 | $4702 |
| EPYC 7551 (180W) |
32 | 2.0-3.0 | >$3400 | Xeon 6152 (140W) | 22 | 2.1-3.7 | $3655 |
| EPYC 7501 (155/170W) | 32 | 2.0-3.0 | $3400 | Xeon 6150 (165W) | 18 | 2.7-3.4 | $3358 |
| EPYC 7451 (180W) |
24 | 2.3-3.2 | >$2400 | Xeon 6140 (165W) | 18 | 2.3-3.7 | $2445 |
| EPYC 7401 (155/170W) | 24 | 2.0-3.0 | $1850 | Xeon 6130 (125W) | 16 | 2.1-3.7 | $1894 |
| Xeon 5120 (105W) | 14 | 2.2-3.2 | $1555 | ||||
| EPYC 7351 (155/170W) | 16 | 2.4-2.9 | >$1100 | Xeon 5118 (105W) | 12 | 2.3-3.2 | $1221 |
| EPYC 7301 (155/170W) | 16 | 2.2-2.7 | >$800 | Xeon 4116 (85W) |
12 | 2.1-3.0 | $1002 |
| EPYC 7281 (155/170W) | 16 | 2.1-2.7 | $650 | Xeon 4114 (85W) |
10 | 2.2-3.0 | $694 |
| EPYC 7251 (120W) |
8 | 2.1-2.9 | $475 | Xeon 4110 (85W) |
8 | 2.1-3.0 | $501 |
Several trends pop up as we look at the table above.
First of foremost, those 24-28 core CPUs are a wonder of modern multicore CPU architecture, but you sure have to pay a lot of money for them. This is especially the case for the SKUs that can support 1.5 TB per socket. Of course if you can afford SAP Hana, you can afford $10k CPUs (or so the theory goes).
Still, if we compare the new high-end Skylake-EP SKUs with the previous 22-core Xeon E5-2699 v4 ($4199), paying twice as much for a 28-core chip just because it can be used in 8 socket configuration is bad news for those of us who need a very fast 2 socket system. In fact, it is almost as Intel has no competition: we only get a little more performance for the same price. For example you can get a Xeon 6148 (20 cores at 2.4 GHz, 150W TDP) for $3072, while you had to pay $3228 last generation for a Xeon E5-2698 v4 (20 cores at 2.2 GHz, 135W). The latter had smaller L2-caches but a much larger L3-cache (45 MB vs 27.5 MB). We're still not getting big steps forward on a performance-per-dollar basis, a similar problem we had with the launch of the Xeon E5 v4 last year.
Hopefully, AMD's EPYC can put some pressure on Intel, if not exceed the 800lb gorilla entirely. AMD typically offers many more cores for the same price. At the high end, AMD offers up to 10 more cores than the similar Xeon: compare the EPYC 7551 with the Intel Xeon 6152.
On the other hand, Intel offers lower TDPs and higher turbo clocks. The 16-core EPYC CPUs in particular seem to have remarkably high TDPs compared to similar Intel SKUs. Those 16-cores look even worse as, despite the lower core count and high TDP, the turbo clock is lower than 3 GHz.
In a nutshell: looking at the current lineups we want lower prices from Intel, and more attractive mid-range SKUs from AMD.
| AMD EPYC Processors (1P) | ||||
| Cores Threads |
Frequency (GHz) | TDP | Price | |
| EPYC 7551P | 32 / 64 | 2.0 -3.0 | 180W | $2100 |
| EPYC 7401P | 24 / 48 | 2.0-3.0 | 155W/170W | $1075 |
| EPYC 7351P | 16 / 32 | 2.4-2.9 | 155W/170W | $750 |
Finally, AMD's single-socket SKUs – identified by a P suffix – are by far the most interesting to us and the most dangerous to Intel. It will be interesting to see how well two 12-core Xeon 5118s can compete with one EPYC 7551P. The clocks are similar, but AMD has 8 extra cores, a less complex server board, much more PCIe bandwidth, and a lower TDP. AMD should have serious cost advantage on paper. We hope to check that in a later review.
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alpha754293 - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
Pity that OpenFOAM failed to run on Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS. I would have been very interested in those results.farmergann - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
Are you trying to hide the fact that AMD's performance per watt absolutely dominates intel's, or have you simply overlooked one of, if not the, single most important aspects of server processors?Ryan Smith - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
Neither. We just had very little time to look at power consumption. It's also the metric we're the least confident in right now, as we'd like to have a better understanding of the quirks of the platform (which again takes more time).Carl Bicknell - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
Ryan / Ian,Just to let you know there are better chess benchmarks than the one you've chosen. Stockfish is an example of a newer program which better uses modern CPU architecture.
NixZero - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
"AMD's MCM approach is much cheaper to manufacture. Peak memory bandwidth and capacity is quite a bit higher with 4 dies and 2 memory channels per die. However, there is no central last level cache that can perform low latency data coordination between the L2-caches of the different cores (except inside one CCX). The eight 8 MB L3-caches acts like - relatively low latency - spill over caches for the 32 L2-caches on one chip. "isnt skylake-x's l3 a victim cache too? and divided at 1.3mb for each core, not a monolytic one?
Ian Cutress - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
That's what a 'spill-over' cache is - it accepts evicted cache lines.NixZero - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
so why its put as an advantage for intel cache, which is spill over too?JonathanWoodruff - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link
Since the Intel one is all on one die, a miss to a "slice" of cache can be filled without DRAM-like latencies from another slice. Since AMD has it's last level caches spread across dies, going to another cache looks to be equivalent latency-wise to going to DRAM. It wouldn't necessarily have to be quite that bad, and I would expect some improvement here for Zen2.Martin_Schou - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
This has to be wrong:CPU Two EPYC 7601 (2.2 GHz, 32c, 8x8MB L3, 180W)
RAM 512 GB (12x32 GB) Samsung DDR4-2666 @2400
12 x 32 GB is 384 GB, and 12 sticks doesn't fit nicely into 8 channels. In all likelihood that's supposed to be 16x32 GB, as we see in the E52690
Dr.Neale - Tuesday, July 11, 2017 - link
I find myself puzzled by the curious omission in this article of a key aspect of Server architecture: Data Security.AMD has a LOT; Intel, not so much.
I would think this aspect of Server "Performance" would be a major consideration in choosing which company's Architecture to deploy in a Secure Server scenario. Especially in light of Recent Revelations fuelling Hacking Headlines in the news, and Dominating Discussions on various social media websites.
How much is Data Security worth?
A topic of EPYC consequence!