The AMD EPYC 7702P is simply a game-changing part. It is the processor that the current Intel Xeon generation has no direct answer to. With this 64-core part, AMD is delivering more cores than a dual-socket Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 system. Indeed, one would need four Intel Xeon CPUs and a system like the Inspur Systems NF8260M5 4P Intel Xeon OCP Server to get 64 cores and 128 threads in the current generation. What is more, the chip has a 4TB memory capacity, something you would need an “L” Xeon at a $7000 premium, or two “M” Xeons at a $3000 premium each to match. AMD has PCIe Gen4, while Intel has PCIe Gen3. AMD has 128x PCIe lanes while Intel has only 96x PCIe lanes with two CPUs. All of this and AMD’s list price is $4425, or less than a single 24-core Intel Xeon Platinum 8260.

Therein lies the opportunity for AMD. It has delivered (more than) Intel’s dual-socket performance in a single socket. Whereas with the first-generation EPYC, Intel was saying that the multi-NUMA node architecture to reach a given core count was not good, the tables have turned. Now Intel needs multiple NUMA nodes for a core count, and potentially worse. Intel may need more systems to match the AMD EPYC 7702P’s capacity for cores and PCIe bandwidth. At some point, Intel will get competitive, but in this generation, having an AMD EPYC 7702P is a clear advantage.

Key stats for the AMD EPYC 7702P: 64 cores / 128 threads with a 2.0GHz base clock and 3.35GHz turbo boost. There is 256MB of onboard L3 cache. The CPU features a 200W TDP. These are $4,425 list price parts.

Here is what the lscpu output looks like for an AMD EPYC 7702P:

For some perspective regarding how massive this is: the Sony Playstation 3 has 256MB of RAM. That is now a single CPU cache at around the midpoint of today’s CPU pricing.

A Word on Power Consumption

We tested these in a number of configurations. The lowest spec configuration we used is a Supermicro AS-1014S-WTRT. This had two 1.2TB Intel DC S3710 SSDs along with 8x 32GB DDR4-3200 RAM. One can get a bit lower in power consumption since this was using a Broadcom BCM57416 based onboard 10Gbase-T connection, but there were no add-in cards.

Even with that here are a few data points using the AMD EPYC 7702P in this configuration when we pushed the sliders all the way to performance mode and a 200W cTDP:

Idle Power (Performance Mode) : 104W

: 104W STH 70% Load : 245W

: 245W STH 100% Load : 261W

: 261W Maximum Observed Power (Performance Mode): 273W

As a 1U server, this does not have the most efficient cooling, still, we are seeing absolutely great power figures here. The impact is simple. If one can consolidate smaller nodes onto an AMD EPYC 7702P system, there are power efficiency gains to be attained as well.

Next, let us look at our performance benchmarks before getting to market positioning and our final words.