AMD Rome Second Generation EPYC Review: 2x 64-core Benchmarked
by Johan De Gelas on August 7, 2019 7:00 PM ESTRome CPUs: Core Counts and Frequencies
There has been little doubt that on paper Rome and the EPYC 7002 family will be a competitive product compared to Intel's Xeon Scalable when it comes to performance or performance per watt. As always, it comes down to paring which part offers the right competition. With Rome, AMD is once again attacking performance per dollar, as well as peak performance and performance per watt.
EPYC 7000 nomenclature
The naming of the CPUs is kept consistent with the previous generation.
- EPYC = Brand
- 7 = 7000 Series
- 25-74 = Dual Digit Number indicative of stack positioning / performance (non-linear)
- 1/2 = Generation
- P = Single Socket, not present in Dual Socket
AMD is introducing 19 total CPUs to the Rome family, 13 of which are aimed at the dual socket market. All CPUs have 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes available for add-in cards, and all CPUs support up to 4 TiB of DDR4-3200.
AMD EPYC 7001 & 7002 Processors (2P) | ||||||
Cores Threads |
Frequency (GHz) | L3* | TDP | Price | ||
Base | Max | |||||
EPYC 7742 | 64 / 128 | 2.25 | 3.40 | 256 MB | 225 W | $6950 |
EPYC 7702 | 64 / 128 | 2.00 | 3.35 | 256 MB | 200 W | $6450 |
EPYC 7642 | 48 / 96 | 2.30 | 3.20 | 256 MB | 225 W | $4775 |
EPYC 7552 | 48 / 96 | 2.20 | 3.30 | 192 MB | 200 W | $4025 |
EPYC 7542 | 32 / 64 | 2.90 | 3.40 | 128 MB | 225 W | $3400 |
EPYC 7502 | 32 / 64 | 2.50 | 3.35 | 128 MB | 200 W | $2600 |
EPYC 7452 | 32 / 64 | 2.35 | 3.35 | 128 MB | 155 W | $2025 |
EPYC 7402 | 24 / 48 | 2.80 | 3.35 | 128 MB | 155 W | $1783 |
EPYC 7352 | 24 / 48 | 2.30 | 3.20 | 128 MB | 180 W | $1350 |
EPYC 7302 | 16 / 32 | 3.00 | 3.30 | 128 MB | 155 W | $978 |
EPYC 7282 | 16 / 32 | 2.80 | 3.20 | 64 MB | 120 W | $650 |
EPYC 7272 | 12 / 24 | 2.90 | 3.20 | 64 MB | 155 W | $625 |
EPYC 7262 | 8 / 16 | 3.20 | 3.40 | 128 MB | 120 W | $575 |
EPYC 7252 | 8 / 16 | 3.10 | 3.20 | 64 MB | 120 W | $475 |
Select EPYC 7001 Naples CPUs | ||||||
EPYC 7601 | 32 / 64 | 2.20 | 3.20 | 64 MB | 180 W | $4200 |
EPYC 7551 | 32 / 64 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 64 MB | 180 W | >$3400 |
EPYC 7501 | 32 / 64 | 2.00 | 3.00 | 64 MB | 155 W | $3400 |
EPYC 7451 | 24 / 48 | 2.30 | 3.20 | 64 MB | 180 W | $2400 |
EPYC 7371 | 16 / 32 | 3.10 | 3.80 | 64 MB | 200 W | $1550 |
EPYC 7251 | 8 / 16 | 2.10 | 2.90 | 32 MB | 120 W | $475 |
Special CPUs worth noting listed in bold * We are awaiting full L3 cache information |
The top part is the EPYC 7742, which is the CPU we were provided for in this comparison. It is the most expensive non-custom AMD CPU ever. We will discuss whether the price is a bargain or suitable after we have done some benchmarking.
But one thing is for sure: AMD is definitely improving the performance per dollar. The real star is the 7502, as it offers 32 Zen2 cores at 2.50/3.35 GHz for $2600. This means that you get higher clocks, better cores, twice the L3, and just as much cores as the 7601 had - in other words, the 7502 is better in every way, but compared to the 7601 it comes with an impressive 40% discount ($2600 vs $4200).
There is more to it. Unlike Intel's market segmentation strategy, which makes the life of enterprise infrastructure people more complicated than it should be, AMD does not blow fuses on cheaper SKUs to create artificial 'value' for buying more expensive SKUs. The cheapest 8-core 7252 has all 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes, it supports up to 4 TB per socket, it has infinity fabric at the same speed, and includes all virtualization and security features as the best product.
Comparison to Intel
In the table below we have done a base example comparison with some of Intel's SKU list. Given that Intel is dominant in the market, prospective buyers must get a significant price bonus or significantly lower TCO before they switch to AMD.
Intel Second Gen Xeon Scalable (Cascade Lake) |
AMD Second Gen EPYC ("Rome") |
||||||||||
Cores | Freq | TDP (W) |
Price | AMD | Cores | Freq | TDP | Price | |||
Xeon Platinum 8200 | Rome | ||||||||||
8280 | M | 28 | 2.7/4.0 | 205 | $13012 | 7742 | 64 | 2.25/3.40 | 225 | $6950 | |
8280 | 28 | 2.7/4.0 | 205 | $10009 | |||||||
8276 | M | 28 | 2.2/4.0 | 165 | $11722 | 7742 | 64 | 2.25/3.40 | 225 | $6950 | |
8270 | 26 | 2.7/4.0 | 205 | $7405 | |||||||
8268 | 24 | 2.9/3.9 | 205 | $6302 | |||||||
8260 | M | 24 | 2.4/3.9 | 165 | $7705 | 7702 | 64 | 2.00/3.35 | 225 | $6450 | |
8260 | 24 | 2.4/3.9 | 165 | $4702 | 7552 | 48 | 2.20/3.50 | 200 | $4025 | ||
8253 | 16 | 2.2/3.0 | 165 | $3115 | 7502 | 32 | 2.50/3.35 | 200 | $2600 | ||
Xeon Gold 6200 | Rome | ||||||||||
6252 | 24 | 2.1/3.7 | 150 | $3665 | |||||||
6248 | 20 | 2.5/3.9 | 150 | $3072 | |||||||
6242 | 16 | 2.8/3.9 | 150 | $2529 | 7452 | 32 | 2.35/3.35 | 155 | $2025 | ||
6238 | 22 | 2.1/3.7 | 140 | $2612 | 7402 | 24 | 2.80/3.35 | 155 | $1783 | ||
6226 | 12 | 2.8/3.7 | 125 | $1776 | |||||||
Xeon Silver 4200 | Rome | ||||||||||
4216 | 16 | 2.1/3.2 | 100 | $1002 | 7282 | 16 | 2.80/3.20 | 120 | $625 | ||
4214 | 2x12 | 2.2/3.2 | 2x85 | 2x$694 | 7402P | 24 | 2.80/3.35 | 180 | $1250 |
In our comparison, we've also ignored the fact that AMD supports up to 4 TB per socket and has 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes, which it beats Intel on both fronts. While the number of people that will buy 256 GB DIMMs is minimal at best, within the error margin of the market, to us it is simply is ridiculous that Intel expect enterprise users to cough up another few thousand dollars per CPU for a model that supports 2 TB, while you get that for free from AMD.
Going on paper, especially in the high-end, Intel is completely outclassed. A 28-core Xeon 8276M has a list price of ~$12k, while AMD charges "only" $7k for more than twice as many cores. The only advantage Intel keeps is a slightly higher single threaded clock (4 GHz) and AVX-512 support. You could argue that the TDP is lower, but that has to be measured, and frankly there is a good chance that one 64 core (at 2.25-3.2 GHz) is able to keep with two Intel Xeon 8276 (2x28 cores at 2.2-2.8 GHz), while offering much lower power consumption (single socket board vs dual board, 225W vs 2x165W).
AMD is even more generous in the mid-range. The EPYC 7552 offers twice the amout of cores at higher clocks than the Xeon Platinum 8260, which is arguably one of the more popular Xeon Platinum CPUs. The same is true for the EPYC 7452, which still costs less than the Xeon Gold 6242. It is only at the very low end, that the diffences get smaller.
Single Socket
For single socket systems, AMD will offer the following five processors below. These processors mirror the specifications of the 2P counterparts, but have a P in the name and slightly different pricing.
AMD EPYC Processors (1P) | ||||||
Cores Threads |
Frequency (GHz) | L3 | TDP | Price | ||
Base | Max | |||||
EPYC 7702P | 64 / 128 | 2.00 | 3.35 | 256 MB | 200 W | $4425 |
EPYC 7502P | 32 / 64 | 2.50 | 3.35 | 128 MB | 200 W | $2300 |
EPYC 7402P | 24 / 48 | 2.80 | 3.35 | 128 MB | 200 W | $1250 |
EPYC 7302P | 16 / 32 | 3.00 | 3.30 | 128 MB | 155 W* | $825 |
EPYC 7232P | 8 / 16 | 3.10 | 3.20 | 32 MB | 120 W | $450 |
*170W TDP mode also available |
This table makes also clear how much extra frequency AMD extracted out of the 7 nm TSMC process. The sixteen core EPYC 7302P runs at 3.0 GHz with all cores, while the EPYC 7351 was limited to 2.4 GHz at the same 155W TDP.
Again, the EPYC 7502P looks like one of the best deals of the server CPU market. This SKU can offer a lot of advantages compared to the current dual socket servers. If offers very potent single thread performance (3.35 GHz boost) and a very high 2.5 GHz when all cores are used, even when running AVX2 code. Secondly, a single socket server has a lower BOM and has lower power consumption (200W) compared to a dual 16-core system. Lastly, it supports up to 1-2 TB realistically (64-128 GB DIMMs) and has ample I/O bandwidth with 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes.
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Kevin G - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Clock speeds. AMD is being very aggressive on clocks here but the Ryzen 3000 series were still higher. I would expect new Threadripper chips to clock closer to their Ryzen 3000 cousins.AMD *might* differentiate Threadripper by cache amounts. While the CPU cores work, they may end up binning Threadripper based upon the amount of cache that wouldn't pass memory tests.
Last thing would be price. The low end Epyc chips are not that expensive but suffer from low cores/low clocks. Threadripper can offer more for those prices.
quorm - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Here's hoping we see a 16 core threadripper with a 4ghz base clock.azfacea - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
half memory channels. half pcie lanes. also i think with epyc AMD spends more on support and system development. i can see 48c 64c threadripper coming 30-40% lower and not affecting epyctwtech - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
If they gimp the memory access again, it mostly defeats the purpose of TR as a workstation chip. You'd want an Epyc anyway.quorm - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Well, on the plus side, the i/o die should solve the asymmetric memory access problem.ikjadoon - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Stunning.aryonoco - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Between 50% to 100% higher performance while costing between 40% to 50% less. Stunning!I remember the sad days of Opteron in 2012 and 2013. If you'd told me that by the end of the decade AMD would be in this position, I'd have wanted to know what you're on.
Everyone at AMD deserves a massive cheer, from the technical and engineering team all the way to Lisa Su, who is redefining what "execution" means.
Also thanks for the testing Johan, I can imagine testing this server at home with Europe's recent heatwave would have not been fun. Good to see you writing frequently for AT again, and looking forward to more of your real world benchmarks.
twtech - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
It's as much about Intel having dropped the ball over the past few years as it is about AMD's execution.According to Intel's old roadmaps, they ought to be transitioning past 10nm on to 7nm by now, and AMD's recent releases in that environment would have seemed far less impressive.
deltaFx2 - Wednesday, August 7, 2019 - link
Yeah, except I don't remember anyone saying Intel was going great guns because AMD dropped the ball in the bulldozer era. AMD had great bulldozer roadmaps too, it didn't matter much. If bulldozer had met its design targets maybe Nehalem would not be as impressive... See, nobody ever says that. It's almost like if AMD is doing well, it's not because they did a good job but intel screwed up.Roadmaps are cheap. Anyone can cobble together a powerpoint slide.
Lord of the Bored - Thursday, August 8, 2019 - link
Well, it is a little of both on both sides.Intel's been doing really well in part because AMD bet hard on Bulldozer and it didn't pay out.
Similarly, when AMD's made really good processors but Intel was on their game, it didn't much matter. The Athlon and the P2/3 traded blows in the Megahertz wars, but in the end AMD couldn't actually break Intel because Intel made crooked business deals*backspace* because AMD was great, but not actually BETTER.
The Athlon 64 was legendary because AMD was at the top of their game and Intel was riding THEIR Bulldozer into the ground at the same time. If the Pentium Mobile hadn't existed, thus delaying a Netburst replacement, things would be very different right now.