AMD EPYC 7002 Rome Servers Plot Intel Xeon Overthrow Breaking 11 Performance World Records
Gigabyte is rolling out the big guns in the server sector, with a new family of products built around AMD's mighty EPYC 7002 "Rome" processors. As we have already seen on the desktop, the underlying Zen 2 CPU architecture is stout. Data centers are where companies like AMD enjoy higher margins, though, and AMD is off to a solid start. So is Gigabyte, which has already broken 11 different SPEC benchmark records.
"These new world records have not only been achieved against results from all alternative processor based systems but even against competing vendor solutions using the same 2nd generation AMD EPYC 7002 Series 'Rome' processor platform, illustrating that Gigabyte's system design and engineering is perfectly optimized to deliver the maximum performance possible from the 2nd generation AMD EPYC," Gigabyte said.
If you have not done so already, check out our semi-deep dive into the EPYC 7002 series. As we previously noted about the new CPU series, the underlying Zen 2 architecture doubles data center performance and density, while maintaining platform compatibility with existing first-gen EPYC parts. Zen 2 represents a successful effort to improve everything from IPC (instructions per clock) and single-thread performance, to multi-thread scaling, latency, and efficiency/power.
It also introduces a bunch of new features. Nevertheless, it's still up to AMD's hardware partners to build capable servers and systems around the new Rome stack. That is where Gigabyte claims it has a leg up on the competition. As it pertains to the benchmark records, Gigabyte set them using a dual-socket R282-Z90 rack server and a single-socket R272-Z30 rack server, both paired with AMD's 64-core/128-thread EPYC 7742 processor.
You can hit the link in the Via field below for a detailed breakdown of the records, but in terms of a high-level overview, Gigabyte's servers set seven new SPEC CPU 2017 and four new SPECjbb 2015 benchmark records. The dual-socket system laid claim to eight of the 11, while the single-socket setup tallied the remaining three.
Gigabyte and AMD can share the bragging rights. Looking at the bigger picture, this sort of thing bodes especially well for AMD as it competes with Intel for market share. In fact, AMD has already scored some big wins, with Google and Twitter both signing up to use EPYC 7002 processors in each one's respective data centers.
AMD has a long way to go, still. Recent data from Mercury Research showed AMD holding a 2.9 percent share of the server market. That was before EPYC Rome, though, and we fully expect AMD to gain some ground going forward.
