AMD 3rd Gen EPYC Milan Review: A Peak vs Per Core Performance Balance
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Andrei Frumusanu on March 15, 2021 11:00 AM ESTDisclaimer June 25th: The benchmark figures in this review have been superseded by our second follow-up Milan review article, where we observe improved performance figures on a production platform compared to AMD’s reference system in this piece.
SPEC - Single-Threaded Performance
Single-thread performance of server CPUs usually isn’t the most important metric for most scale-out workloads, but there are use-cases such as EDA tools which are pretty much single-thread performance bound.
Power envelopes here usually don’t matter, and what is actually the performance factor that comes at play here is simply the boost clocks of the CPUs as well as the IPC improvement, and memory latency of the cores. We’re also testing the results here in NPS1 mode as if you have single-threaded bound workloads, you should prefer to use the systems in a single NUMA node mode.
Generationally, the new Zen3-based 7763 improves performance quite significantly over the 7742, even though I noted that both parts boosted almost equally to around 3400MHz in single-threaded scenarios. The uplifts here average over a geomean of +25%, with individual increases from +15 to +50%, with a median of +22%.
The Milan part also now more clearly competes against the best of the competition, even though it’s not a single-threaded optimised part as the 75F3 – we’ll see those scores a bit later.
In SPECfp, the Zen3 based Milan chip also does extremely well, measuring an average geomean boost of +14.2% and a median of +18%.
The new 7763 takes a notable lead in single-threaded performance amongst the large core count SKUs in the market right now. More notably, the 75F3 further increases this lead through the higher 4GHz boost clock this frequency optimised part enables.
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eva02langley - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
You probably looking at the blue lines (Intel)... just saying...Targon - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
Compared to what? Core count not increasing, but Zen3 is still a big improvement when it comes to IPC compared to Zen2.mode_13h - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
We can hope that they find some microcode fixes to improve power allocation, and maybe a mid-cycle refresh with an updated I/O die.Spunjji - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
How surprising, an Intel fanboy is unimpressed.Wilco1 - Sunday, March 21, 2021 - link
It's actually an impressive improvement. However Milan is getting power and memory bandwidth limited. It will take a new process and DDR5 to achieve significantly more performance.ballsystemlord - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
Spelling and grammar errors:"As the first generation Naples was launched, it offered impressive some performance numbers."
Rearange words:
"As the first generation Naples was launched, it offered some impressive performance numbers."
"All of these processors can be use in dual socket configurations."
"used" not "use":
"All of these processors can be used in dual socket configurations."
"... I see these to chips as the better apples-to-apples generational comparison, ..."
"two" not "to":
"... I see these two chips as the better apples-to-apples generational comparison, ..."
"There is always room for improvement, but if AMD equip themselves with a good IO update next generation,..."
Missing "s":
"There is always room for improvement, but if AMD equips themselves with a good IO update next generation,..."
eva02langley - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
If business don't buy EPYC by then, than they deserve all the issues coming with Intel CPUs.Otritus - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
Milan's IO die really seems to be the Achilles heel of these CPUs. Perhaps AMD should have segregated the line up into superior memory performance and features Milan IO die and superior compute performance (but inferior features) Rome IO die.Targon - Monday, March 15, 2021 - link
The Zen4 generation will make the move to DDR5 memory, so new memory controller, socket, and other aspects. Also, as time goes on, the contracts with Global Foundries for how much they make for AMD will expire. As it stands now, the use of Global is entirely to fulfill the contracts and avoid paying any early termination fees.Calin - Tuesday, March 16, 2021 - link
TSMC still can not make enough chiplets (I think its production is sold until 2023).Using Global Foundry IO dies means AMD can make one 8+1 instead of 8 processors (or 4+1 instead of 4).