Cray CS500 Supercomputers to Include AMD's Epyc as a Processor Option

AMD Epyc 7000-Series Launched With Up to 32 Cores 19 comments

AMD has launched its Ryzen-based take on x86 server processors to compete with Intel's Xeon CPUs. All of the Epyc 7000-series CPUs support 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes and 8 channels (2 DIMMs per channel) of DDR4-2666 DRAM:

A few weeks ago AMD announced the naming of the new line of enterprise-class processors, called EPYC, and today marks the official launch with configurations up to 32 cores and 64 threads per processor. We also got an insight into several features of the design, including the AMD Infinity Fabric.
Today's announcement of the AMD EPYC product line sees the launch of the top four CPUs, focused primarily at dual socket systems. The full EPYC stack will contain twelve processors, with three for single socket environments, with the rest of the stack being made available at the end of July. It is worth taking a few minutes to look at how these processors look under the hood.
On the package are four silicon dies, each one containing the same 8-core silicon we saw in the AMD Ryzen processors. Each silicon die has two core complexes, each of four cores, and supports two memory channels, giving a total maximum of 32 cores and 8 memory channels on an EPYC processor. The dies are connected by AMD's newest interconnect, the Infinity Fabric, which plays a key role not only in die-to-die communication but also processor-to-processor communication and within AMD's new Vega graphics. AMD designed the Infinity Fabric to be modular and scalable in order to support large GPUs and CPUs in the roadmap going forward, and states that within a single package the fabric is overprovisioned to minimize any issues with non-NUMA aware software (more on this later).
With a total of 8 memory channels, and support for 2 DIMMs per channel, AMD is quoting a 2TB per socket maximum memory support, scaling up to 4TB per system in a dual processor system. Each CPU will support 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, suitable for six GPUs with full bandwidth support (plus IO) or up to 32 NVMe drives for storage. All the PCIe lanes can be used for IO devices, such as SATA drives or network ports, or as Infinity Fabric connections to other devices. There are also 4 IO hubs per processor for additional storage support.

AMD's slides at Ars Technica.

Original Submission

Intel's Skylake-SP vs AMD's Epyc 15 comments

takyon writes:

AnandTech compared Intel's Skylake-SP chips to AMD's Epyc chips:

We can continue to talk about Intel's excellent mesh topology and AMD strong new Zen architecture, but at the end of the day, the "how" will not matter to infrastructure professionals. Depending on your situation, performance, performance-per-watt, and/or performance-per-dollar are what matters.
The current Intel pricing draws the first line. If performance-per-dollar matters to you, AMD's EPYC pricing is very competitive for a wide range of software applications. With the exception of database software and vectorizable HPC code, AMD's EPYC 7601 ($4200) offers slightly less or slightly better performance than Intel's Xeon 8176 ($8000+). However the real competitor is probably the Xeon 8160, which has 4 (-14%) fewer cores and slightly lower turbo clocks (-100 or -200 MHz). We expect that this CPU will likely offer 15% lower performance, and yet it still costs about $500 more ($4700) than the best EPYC. Of course, everything will depend on the final server system price, but it looks like AMD's new EPYC will put some serious performance-per-dollar pressure on the Intel line.
The Intel chip is indeed able to scale up in 8 sockets systems, but frankly that market is shrinking fast, and dual socket buyers could not care less.
Meanwhile, although we have yet to test it, AMD's single socket offering looks even more attractive. We estimate that a single EPYC 7551P would indeed outperform many of the dual Silver Xeon solutions. Overall the single-socket EPYC gives you about 8 cores more at similar clockspeeds than the 2P Intel, and AMD doesn't require explicit cross socket communication - the server board gets simpler and thus cheaper. For price conscious server buyers, this is an excellent option.
However, if your software is expensive, everything changes. In that case, you care less about the heavy price tags of the Platinum Xeons. For those scenarios, Intel's Skylake-EP Xeons deliver the highest single threaded performance (courtesy of the 3.8 GHz turbo clock), high throughput without much (hardware) tuning, and server managers get the reassurance of Intel's reliable track record. And if you use expensive HPC software, you will probably get the benefits of Intel's beefy AVX 2.0 and/or AVX-512 implementations.

AMD's flagship Epyc CPU has 32 cores, while the largest Skylake-EP Xeon CPU has 28 cores.

Quoted text is from page 23, "Closing Thoughts".

[Ed. note: Article is multiple pages with no single page version in sight.]

Previously: Google Gets its Hands on Skylake-Based Intel Xeons
Intel Announces 4 to 18-Core Skylake-X CPUs
AMD Epyc 7000-Series Launched With Up to 32 Cores
Intel's Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs Have Nasty Microcode Bug
AVX-512: A "Hidden Gem"?

Original Submission

Data Centers Consider Intel's Rivals 14 comments

takyon writes:

Amid the ongoing Meltdown fiasco, Intel has only one way to go in the data center... down. Intel may be forced to offer discounts or rebates to prevent customers from eventually moving to AMD x86 chips (such as Epyc) or even ARM chips:

Intel chips back 98% of data center operations, according to industry consultancy IDC. [...] Microsoft said on Tuesday the patches necessary to secure the threats could have a significant performance impact on servers.
[...] For Gleb Budman's company, San Mateo-based online storage firm Backblaze, building with ARM chips would not be difficult. "If ARM provides enough computing power at lower cost or lower power than x86, it would be a strong incentive for us to switch," said Budman. "If the fix for x86 results in a dramatically decreased level of performance, that might increasingly push in favor of switching to ARM."
Infinitely Virtual, a Los Angeles-based cloud computing vendor, is counting on Intel to replace equipment or offer a rebate to make up for the loss in computing power, Chief Executive Adam Stern said in an interview. "If Intel doesn't step up and do something to make this right then we're going to have to punish them in the marketplace by not purchasing their products," said Stern, whose company relies exclusively on Intel processors.
[...] Both Qualcomm and Cavium are developing ARM chips aimed at data centers. Cavium said it aimed to rival the performance of Intel chips for applications like databases and the content-delivery networks that help speed things like how fast online videos load.

Original Submission

TSMC Will Make AMD's "7nm" Epyc Server CPUs 4 comments

takyon writes:

AMD "Rome" EPYC CPUs to Be Fabbed By TSMC

AMD CEO Lisa Su has announced that second-generation "Rome" EPYC CPU that the company is wrapping up work on is being produced out at TSMC. This is a notable departure from how things have gone for AMD with the Zen 1 generation, as GlobalFoundries has produced all of AMD's Zen CPUs, both for consumer Ryzen and professional EPYC parts.
[...] As it stands, AMD seems rather optimistic about how things are currently going. Rome silicon is already back in the labs, and indeed AMD is already sampling the parts to certain partners for early validation. Which means AMD remains on track to launch their second-generation EPYC processors in 2019.
[...] Ultimately however if they are meeting their order quota from GlobalFoundries, then AMD's situation is ultimately much more market driven: which fab can offer the necessary capacity and performance, and at the best prices. Which will be an important consideration as GlobalFoundries has indicated that it may not be able to keep up with 7nm demand, especially with the long manufacturing process their first-generation DUV-based 7nm "7LP" process requires.

Original Submission

Oracle Offers Servers with AMD's Epyc to its Cloud Customers 1 comment

takyon writes:

Oracle puts AMD EPYC in the Cloud

The process of AMD ramping up its EPYC efforts involves a lot of 'first-step' vendor interaction. Having been a very minor player for so long, all the big guns are taking it slowly with AMD's newest hardware in verifying whether it is suitable for their workloads and customers. The next company to tick that box is Oracle, who is announcing today that they will be putting bare metal EPYC instances available in its cloud offering.
The new E-series instances will start with Standard E2, costing around $0.03 per core per hour, up to 64 cores per server, Oracle is stating that this pricing structure is 66% less than the average per-core instance on the market. One bare metal standard instance, BM.Standard E2.52, will offer dual EPYC 7551 processors at 2.0 GHz, with 512 GB of DDR4, dual 25GbE networking, and up to 1PB of remote block storage. Another offering is the E2.64 instance, which will offer 16 cores by comparison.

Original Submission

AMD Previews Zen 2 Epyc CPUs with up to 64 Cores, New "Chiplet" Design 9 comments

takyon writes:

AMD has announced the next generation of its Epyc server processors, with up to 64 cores (128 threads) each. Instead of an 8-core "core complex" (CCX), AMD's 64-core chips will feature 8 "chiplets" with 8 cores each:

AMD on Tuesday formally announced its next-generation EPYC processor code-named Rome. The new server CPU will feature up to 64 cores featuring the Zen 2 microarchitecture, thus providing at least two times higher performance per socket than existing EPYC chips.
As discussed in a separate story covering AMD's new 'chiplet' design approach, AMD EPYC 'Rome' processor will carry multiple CPU chiplets manufactured using TSMC's 7 nm fabrication process as well as an I/O die produced at a 14 nm node. As it appears, high-performance 'Rome' processors will use eight CPU chiplets offering 64 x86 cores in total.

Why chiplets?

Separating CPU chiplets from the I/O die has its advantages because it enables AMD to make the CPU chiplets smaller as physical interfaces (such as DRAM and Infinity Fabric) do not scale that well with shrinks of process technology. Therefore, instead of making CPU chiplets bigger and more expensive to manufacture, AMD decided to incorporate DRAM and some other I/O into a separate chip. Besides lower costs, the added benefit that AMD is going to enjoy with its 7 nm chiplets is ability to easier[sic] bin new chips for needed clocks and power, which is something that is hard to estimate in case of servers.

AMD also announced that Zen 4 is under development. It could be made on a "5nm" node, although that is speculation. The Zen 3 microarchitecture will be made on TSMC's N7+ process ("7nm" with more extensive use of extreme ultraviolet lithography).

AMD's Epyc CPUs will now be offered on Amazon Web Services.

AnandTech live blog of New Horizon event.

Previously: AMD Epyc 7000-Series Launched With Up to 32 Cores
TSMC Will Make AMD's "7nm" Epyc Server CPUs
Intel Announces 48-core Xeons Using Multiple Dies, Ahead of AMD Announcement

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