AMD previews 3rd generation EPYC ‘Milan’ performance

Since the announcement of AMD’s Zen 3 core microarchitecture, we have expected three series of products to be announced: desktop Ryzen, mobile Ryzen and enterprise EPYC. So far, desktops have been launched and in retail (if you can find them), and the Ryzen mobile processors are part of AMD’s CES revelations this week for retail in February. It leaves only the Zen 3-based EPYC, which AMD has decided to preview as part of its CES main presentation today.

When it comes to the design of the Zen 3 EPYC ‘Milan’ processors, we expect an almost invisible transition from the previous Zen 2 EPYC ̵

6;Roma’ ecosystem, with pin-compatible processors offering up to 64 cores and with 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes. For performance, if desktop processors are anything to go by, we should expect to see + 19% IPC gains as well. The question is still in terms of frequencies and efficiency, and when the time comes for AMD to announce the product stack, we will see where the solution lies in relation to the competition – should AMD have a significant competitive advantage, prices will undoubtedly rise as we want. The previous generation EPYC 7742 had a ‘list price’ of $ 6950 for comparison.

In today’s keynote presentation, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su presented a weather forecast simulation code known as the WRF, with two of the new 32-core Milan processors up against Intel’s popular 28-core Xeon Gold 6258R (we’ve reviewed these). The demo showed a simulation of a 6-hour weather pattern across the continental United States, where Milan’s double contact was 46% faster than Intel. This was calculated based on the final frame cut from the simulation in the main test, which showed that where Intel was 56% complete, AMD was 82% complete.

+ 68% for single withdrawals, + 46% for double withdrawals

AMD’s own calculation then showed + 68% difference when comparing a solution with one socket. AMD did not provide exact details about the rest of the system used in the testing. It should be clear that because this is a preview, we can not validate AMD’s performance requirements.

We expect more details about Milan’s and AMD’s portfolio later this year. The sooner the better.