AMD has reaffirmed that its 3rd Gen EPYC Milan CPUs are on track and will be launching in Q1 2021. The statement comes from within a slide posted by Hardwareluxx which quotes AMD on next-generation EPYC Milan CPU availability and shipments.
AMD’s 3rd Gen EPYC Milan ‘Zen 3’ CPUs On Track, Will Be Launching in Q1 2021
In slides talking about its next-generation EPYC Milan CPUs based on the Zen 3 core architecture, AMD states that more companies are now showing interest in EPYC CPUs compared to Intel’s own Xeon lineup. Within the HPC industry, favorable perception of AMD EPYC CPUs has risen from 36% in 2016 to 78% in 2020 while 68% of the HPC users hold a favorable view of Intel’s next-gen Xeon CPUs.
AMD may not be the HPC market leader yet but it is definitely on the right path, offering disruptive server CPU options under the EPYC banner with insane core counts, higher performance output & industry-leading efficiency figures, all at a stunning perf/$ value.
AMD has revealed that they are on track to begin volume shipments of their next-generation EPYC Milan CPUs this quarter to select cloud and HPC customers. The lineup of AMD’s 3rd Gen EYPC CPU family will officially be launching in Q1 2021 and aligned with OEM availability. This means that we are definitely going to hear more about EPYC at CES 2021 where we can get details on the specs & the lineup itself.
The AMD EPYC Milan servers will be outfitted with the recently announced Instinct MI100 HPC GPU accelerators which offer a tremendous leap in HPC Compute horsepower. More on those here. The initial leaked performance numbers show AMD EPYC Milan offering a huge boost in single-thread & also multi-threaded workloads.
Here’s Everything We Know About AMD’s 3rd Gen EPYC Milan ‘Zen 3’ CPU Family
The AMD EPYC Milan processors would succeed the current EPYC Rome lineup. The fundamental change for the EPYC Milan lineup would be the new Zen 3 core architecture which will be based upon an advanced 7nm process node. From what we know and what AMD has officially shown, the AMD Zen 3 based EPYC Milan processors would focus primarily on overall performance per watt enhancements but that doesn’t mean we won’t be looking at core updates.
The AMD EPYC Milan CPUs featuring the Zen 3 core architecture will not only feature a brand new chip architecture but also feature a 19% increase in IPC over Zen 2 processors and a 40% jump in performance per watt based on what we have seen on the consumer level chips. The higher single-core performance jump will put AMD on par with Intel’s next-generation Xeon CPUs while taking the multi-threaded lead even further.
When asked about what kind of performance gain Milan’s CPU core microarchitecture, which is known as Zen 3, will deliver relative to the Zen 2 microarchitecture that Rome relies on in terms of instructions processed per CPU clock cycle (IPC), Norrod observed that — unlike Zen 2, which was more of an evolution of the Zen microarchitecture that powers first-gen Epyc CPUs — Zen 3 will be based on a completely new architecture.
Norrod did qualify his remarks by pointing out that Zen 2 delivered a bigger IPC gain than what’s normal for an evolutionary upgrade — AMD has said it’s about 15% on average — since it implemented some ideas that AMD originally had for Zen but had to leave on the cutting board. However, he also asserted that Zen 3 will deliver performance gains “right in line with what you would expect from an entirely new architecture.”
– The Street
In a previous slide, AMD showed their Zen 3 based 7nm processors offering better performance per watt than Intel’s 10nm Ice Lake-SP Xeon chips. As for the new features, other than featuring its Zen 3 core design, Milan would offer socket compatibility with SP3 platforms, would feature support for DDR4 memory, PCIe 4.0 interface, and is stated to offer 64 cores and 2x the threads (128 threads). The chips will have a TDP rated at 120-225W which is similar to existing Rome parts.
So summing everything up for EPYC Milan, we are looking at the following main features:
- Advanced 7nm Zen 3 cores (~64 core / 128 thread)
- Pin Compatible With SP3 Socket
- 120W-225W TDP SKUs
- PCIe 4.0 Support
- DDR4 Memory Support
- Launch in 2020
Moving forward, as far as the launch date is concerned, AMD has reaffirmed that EPYC Milan CPUs will ship in late 2020. The CPUs will go head to head with Intel’s Cooper Lake-SP 14nm and Ice Lake-SP 10nm CPUs which will be shipping this and next year, respectively.