AMD’s New EPYC Processor Deliver World’s Fastest Per-Core Performance

Extending its offering in server chips, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) had announced three new 2nd Gen AMC EPYCTM processor. However, it was the per-core performance of its new processors – 7Fx2 – that drew attention from around the world. As per AMD, the 7Fx2 processor delivers the world’s fastest per-core performance. This comes after AMD disrupted the server chip market in 2019 by introducing EPYC, which gained new customers like Google and Twitter from Intel. However, Intel remains the primary supplier of server chips for Google and Twitter.

But, AMD has been making inroads with its superior EPYC ever since its release. Cloud computing has become the driving force for companies and chip manufacturers are relying on server chips for their growth. AMD has picked up the pace and is showing the potential of overpowering Intel — the leader in server chips.

New Processors’ Capabilities

The new EPYC chips 7F32, 7F52, and 7F72 come with 8, 16 and 24 cores to effectively handle heavy workloads of servers. It also has a speed boost of 500 MHz as base frequencies, along with higher cache memory over its previous generation EPYCs. The processors are based on AMD Infinity architecture and have ‘Zen 2’ cores for optimal performance on databases, commercial ‘high-performance computing’, and ‘hyperconverged’ infrastructure workloads.

As per AMD, the new series of chips provide 17% higher SQL server performance in databases when compared with competitors. Besides, it offers a 47% higher VMmark 3.1 score for hyperconverged infrastructure, and up to 94% higher per-core computational fluid dynamics individual application performance in comparison to competitors. However, to deliver such speed, it has a higher thermal design power. Therefore, it consumes more power and dissipates more heat. But, AMD claims that the processors reduce the total operating cost by 50% due to the exceptional speed.

AMD Is Gaining Market Share

AMD is believed to be reaching double-digit share by the second quarter of this year. In the final quarter of 2019, AMD saw $2.13 billion in revenue, which was mostly generated by AMD’s Ryzen and EPYC processors. Since Lisa Su took the helm of AMD in 2014, the company has witnessed unprecedented growth from the brink of bankruptcy. The stocks are up by 1,300% since 2014.

Now, the new suite of processors has already gained more customers for AMD as Dell Technologies will be using the EPYC’s new chips to power its servers to drive substantial performance benefits for customer business applications, like database and hyperconveged infrastructure. “Dell EMC PowerEdge servers hold a world record in benchmark performance, and with the new addition of EPYC chips, we will continue to grow with our platforms,” said Rajesh Pohani, vice president, server platform product management, Dell technologies.

IBM Cloud has already integrated the EPYC 7F72 chip in their bare metal offering, providing access to fast, high core-count dual-socket bare metal servers. Furthermore, Microsoft, Lenovo, and VMware will be deploying the EPYC processors in their servers to offer superior performance for their customers.

AMD increased 3.2 percentage points for Q4 2019 over Q4 2018 in the processor market that excludes console and IoT devices. In 2020, it is striving to gain a competitive advantage and continue its business growth. 

Outlook

AMD is already becoming a leader in GPUs as it will be powering most of the cloud gaming platforms and is now showing promising developments in CPUs with its state-of-the-art server processors. However, overpowering Intel in server chips looks a distant dream as Xeon has a 96.10% market share. Although Intel lost 2% in server chips in 2019, it is a clear leader in the space. But what could trouble Intel is that it is losing ground even in the mobile and desktop market, where it saw a negative 4.5 and 4.2% growth, respectively. 

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