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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MDD1963 - Friday, August 9, 2019 - link
of the '1800 servers', how many of those are virtual, just out of curiosity? ('1800 servers' is not quite as impressive if there were, for example, 10 hosts w/ 180 Windows VMs each, for example) U.S.A.F offices are still mostly Windows 10...I'd suspect the are datacenters at each base having a large Windows Server presence as well.. (But, we used Redhat onboard assorted recce aircraft for many years now....; which seems stupid in light of the fact they could easily use CentOS for free; presumably, a Senator's family members work at Redhat, and enjoy the large income from support contracts)eek2121 - Friday, August 9, 2019 - link
Employers use Windows, data centers use Linux. All the major cloud providers, including Microsoft, have reported that Linux has the highest market share.gylgamesh - Friday, August 9, 2019 - link
Could you please specify what kind of servers those are and what tasks do they perform, and also which MS Windows OS are they using? Thanks.Slickest - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
I work for one of the largest colleges in the nation, and 90% of our servers are Windows.69369369 - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
"LUL"Go back to Twitch kiddo.
azfacea - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
and what would u do if i dont?Oliseo - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Tell your mum you're up late again and she will force you to go outside, and we all know how much your dislike having to do that.prophet001 - Monday, August 12, 2019 - link
I don't get the hate for windows server? How you gonna run a domain and active directory in linux?CaedenV - Wednesday, August 21, 2019 - link
I use to work in schools, and a few that could not afford Windows Server would run AD through some Linux application. It was not exactly full-featured, but it worked well enough for 'free' solution.deltaFx2 - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
@Pancakes: Are you kidding? 1T perf is at par with Skylake. Windows licenses per core. Why would anyone buy a SKU with more cores than they need? And if they did do that, why would they not run them on a VM? Do these people also buy more racks than they need and run windows just for the fun of it?