AMD Rome Second Generation EPYC Review: 2x 64-core Benchmarked
by Johan De Gelas on August 7, 2019 7:00 PM ESTMulti-core SPEC CPU2006
For the record, we do not believe that the SPEC CPU "Rate" metric has much value for estimating server CPU performance. Most applications do not run lots of completely separate processes in parallel; there is at least some interaction between the threads. But since the benchmark below caused so much discussion, we wanted to satisfy the curiosity of our readers.
| 2P SPEC CPU2006 Estimates | ||||||
| Subtest | Xeon 8176 |
EPYC 7601 |
EPYC 7742 |
EPYC 7742 |
Zen2 vs Zen1 |
EPYC 7742 Vs Xeon |
| Cores | 56C | 64C | 128C | |||
| Frequency | 2.8 G | 2.7G | 2.5-3.2G | 2.5-3.2G | ||
| GCC | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.4 | 8.3 | 7.4 | 7.4 |
| 400.perlbench | 1980 | 2020 | 4680 | 4820 | +132% | +136% |
| 401.bzip2 | 1120 | 1280 | 3220 | 3250 | +152% | +188% |
| 403.gcc | 1300 | 1400 | 3540 | 3540 | +153% | +172% |
| 429.mcf | 927 | 837 | 1540 | 1540 | +84% | +66% |
| 445.gobmk | 1500 | 1780 | 4160 | 4170 | +134% | +177% |
| 456.hmmer | 1580 | 1700 | 3320 | 6480 | +95% | +110% |
| 458.sjeng | 1570 | 1820 | 3860 | 3900 | +112% | +146% |
| 462.libquantum | 870 | 1060 | 1180 | 1180 | +11% | +36% |
| 464.h264ref | 2670 | 2680 | 6400 | 6400 | +139% | +140% |
| 471.omnetpp | 756 | 705 (*) | 1520 | 1510 | +116% | +101% |
| 473.astar | 976 | 1080 | 1550 | 1550 | +44% | +59% |
| 483.xalancbmk | 1310 | 1240 | 2870 | 2870 | +131% | +119% |
We repeat: the SPECint rate test is likely unrealistic. If you start up 112 to 256 instances, you create a massive bandwidth bottleneck, no synchronization is going on and there is a consistent CPU load of 100%, all of which is very unrealistic in most integer applications.
The SPECint rate estimate results emphasizes all the strengths of the new EPYC CPU: more cores, much higher bandwidth. And at the time it ignores one of smaller disadvantages: higher intercore latency. So this is really the ideal case for the EPYC processors.
Nevertheless, even if we take into account that AMD has an 45% memory bandwidth advantage and that Intel latest chip (8280) offers about 7 to 8% better performance, this is amazing. The SPECint rate numbers of the EPYC 7742 are - on average - simply twice as high as those of the best available socketed Intel Xeons.
Interestingly, we saw that most rate benchmarks ran at P1 clock or the highest p-state minus one. For example, this is what we saw when running libquantum:
While some benchmarks like h264ref were running at lower clocks.
The current server does not allow us to do accurate power measuring but if the AMD EPYC 7742 can stay within the 225W TDP while running integer workloads at all cores at 3.2 GHz, that would be pretty amazing. Long story short: the new EPYC 7742 seems to be able to sustain higher clocks than comparable Intel models while running integer workloads on all cores.
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steepedrostee - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
if i had to guess who is more full of crapola, i would think youSmell This - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Pooper Lake?
Cascade is obviously, The Mistake By The Lake
Chipzillah will certainly strike back but it reminds me of the old 'virgin' joke. "My first wife was an OB/GYN, and all she wanted to do was look at it. My second wife was a psychiatrist, and all she wanted to do was talk about it, and ...
My third wife was an Intel Fan Girl, and all she could say was, "Wait until next year!"
HA!
RSAUser - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Do we finally have a contender to run Crysis on max?Tunnah - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
I'd normally just ignore this but this really needs proofreading, There's multiple mistakes on every page, becomes a bit difficult to follow.cerealspiller - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Well, 50% of the sentences in your post have a grammatical error, so I will just try to ignore it.GreenReaper - Friday, August 9, 2019 - link
He's a reader, not a writer. ;-)Oliseo - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Pot. Meet Kettle.steepedrostee - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
wow amd !umano - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Intel people will welcome "Rome" like gladiators "Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant"I am really happy for Amd and I really hope their sells will be a lot more than they could ever dream.
Because they become more than competitive with the most rightful strategy, just deliver an awesome product. The fact they think that they will just double their shares shows how sick the market(s) are. The epyc is faster, greener and way way cheaper.
29a - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
"AMD does not blow fuses on cheaper SKUs to create artificial 'value' for buying more expensive SKUs"I like this guy, more reviews from him. He's not afraid to bite the hand that feeds him.