At its “together we advance data centers” event in Santa Clara, California, chipmaker AMD announced the general availability of the 4th generation AMD EPYC processors, which are aimed for critical workloads across cloud, enterprise and high performance computing.
Built on the “Zen 4” core, the highest performance core ever from AMD, the latest AMD EPYC processors bring next-generation architecture, technology, and features to the modern data center.
“Choosing the right data center processor is more important than ever, and 4th Gen EPYC processors deliver leadership in every dimension. The data center represents the largest growth opportunity and most strategic priority for AMD, and we are committed to making AMD the partner of choice by offering the industry’s broadest portfolio of high-performance and adaptive computing engines,” said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO of AMD.
“We have built the best data center CPU roadmap in the industry, and with 4th Gen EPYC we deliver another major step forward in performance and efficiency to make the best server processor roadmap even better. With a significantly expanded set of solutions on-track to launch from our ecosystem of partners, customers selecting 4th Gen EPYC to power their data centers can improve performance, consolidate their infrastructure, and lower energy costs.”
The new AMD EPYC processors feature the following:
- Support Performance and Efficiency. With up to 96 cores in a single processor, the new AMD EPYC processors can enable customers to deploy fewer and more powerful servers to continue to meet their compute needs. This allows them to drive greater flexibility within the data center that can be leveraged to address business sustainability goals and drive real-world dividends.
- Help Keep Data Secure. Through a “Security by Design” approach, AMD continues to deliver enhanced security features in x86 CPUs. The 4th generation AMD EPYC processor series expands on AMD Infinity Guard, a cutting-edge set of features that offers physical and virtual layers of protection. With 2X the number of encryption keys compared to previous generations, 4th Gen EPYC processors help customers keep data secure, whether it is stored locally, in the cloud, or residing in storage.
- Use the Latest Industry Features and Architectures. These processors continue to provide customers with an “all-in” feature set, with customers just needing to pick the core count and frequency that matches their workload needs. The 4th Gen AMD EPYC processor introduces support for DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen 5, which are critical for AI and ML applications. In addition, 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors support CXL 1.1+ for memory expansion, helping customers to meet demands for larger in-memory workload capacity.
At the launch event, AMD executives were backed by numerous cloud, software and OEM partners including Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, HPE, Lenovo, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Supermicro and VMware. These partners highlighted their support for 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors:
- Dell Technologies announced the next generation of Dell PowerEdge servers with 4th Generation AMD EPYC processors. Providing impressive application performance, the new systems are designed to help customers more effectively power demanding, compute-centric workloads such as data analytics.
- Google Cloud discussed incorporating 4th generation AMD EPYC processors into Google Cloud Compute Engine and highlighted how AMD EPYC processors in its data centers are helping Google with their efficiency goals. As well, they highlighted the use of AMD EPYC processors to deliver leading price-performance in the Google Cloud Tau VMs and highly-secure data protection with Google Cloud’s Confidential Computing portfolio.
- HPE announced new HPE ProLiant Gen11 servers that support 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors that are also available through a pay-as-you-go consumption model with HPE GreenLake. HPE also announced support for 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors across its supercomputing portfolio with the new HPE Cray EX2500 and HPE Cray XD2000 supercomputers.
- Lenovo introduced 21 new ThinkSystem servers and ThinkAgile hyperconverged (HCI) solutions, powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors, including ThinkAgile VX and ThinkAgile HX to enable fast hybrid multi-cloud deployment and simplify infrastructure management.
- Microsoft announced a Preview of new Virtual Machines (VMs) for HPC. HBv4-series VMs and the all new HX-series VMs are both powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors. Each will feature AMD 3D V-Cache Technology when they reach General Availability in 2023. Microsoft also announced additional VMs and containers using 4th Gen AMD EPYC are forthcoming.
- The latest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) E5 compute instances are powered by 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors to be used by customers such as Oracle Red Bull Racing for development of their next generation of powertrain projects. Oracle will also provide enhanced security with OCI Confidential Computing, based on AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV). 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors additionally power MySQL HeatWave, Oracle Autonomous Database and Exadata Database Service on OCI.
- Supermicro announced significant additions to its broad line of servers supporting the new 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors in the A+ series
- VMware announced vSphere 8 support and optimization for the 4th generation EPYC processor powered systems is available now.
