Beastly AMD Zen 4 Genoa EPYC CPUs Smile For The Camera With Huge SP5 Socket
Sometime later this year, AMD will release a new round EPYC server CPUs based on its Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Genoa (EPYC 9000 series). While we stand by and wait for the next-gen chips to manifest, photos of engineering samples and AMD's accompanying massive SP5 socket have found their way to the web, giving us a visual teaser of what's to come.
AMD hasn't exactly been quiet about Zen 4 or Genoa. The company already confirmed that its EPYC 9000 series CPUs based on a 5-nanometer process node be offered in up to 96-core/192-thread configurations. AMD also said Genoa will serve up 12 channels of DDR5 memory and next-generation I/O (PCI Express Gen 5 and memory expansion via CXL).
If all goes to plan, Genoa will take its place as the highest-performance general-purpose server platform on the market. According to AMD, its flagship EPYC 9000 series processor will deliver a better than 75 percent uplift in enterprise Java performance compared to its flagship 3rd gen EPYC CPU.
As to the photos of some early Genoa silicon, those were shared by @yuuki_ans, a well known leaker in the Twittersphere...
1. Take out the radiator...
— 结城安穗-YuuKi_AnS (@yuuki_ans) July 8, 2022
2. Putting two AMD ZEN4 Genoa EPYC 3. CPUs into the machine...
4. Install the radiator...
5. Turn on the machine...
6. Boot:
AMD Eng Sample：100-000000***-0*
7. After a few seconds...
8. Two CPUs have been burned and damaged... pic.twitter.com/Uv2xpyTs8I
One of the photos is just an all-black image, because unfortunately for @yuuki_ans, the two Genoa CPUs they obtained ended up "burned and damaged" after running them for a few seconds.
The top-left image shows thermal paste applied to the entire surface. It's speculated in the Twitter thread that someone may have forgotten to fill the radiator that was tasked with cooling these chips, but no details are provided on how they actually burned up, only that they've passed on to the silicon graveyard.
"Friends who work in the testing department tell us they have dozens of SPRs and dozens of Genoas burned on their machines...
---
It's normal, isn't it ...
Tests are always like this," the leaker stated when asked if they were sure the CPUs were dead.
We also get a glimpse of the top-side of one of the CPUs, as well as the absolutely monstrous SP5 socket that will house these next-gen chips.
AMD will launch its Zen 4 EPYC Genoa processors in the fourth quarter of this year. Then in 2023, Genoa-X will debut with up to the same core and thread count and built on the same 5nm process, but with up to 1GB or more of L3 cache per socket.
