Monday, December 18th 2023
AMD 5th Gen EPYC "Turin" Pictured: Who Needs Accelerators When You Have 192 Cores?
AMD's upcoming server processor, the 5th Gen EPYC "Turin," has been pictured as an engineering sample is probably being evaluated by the company's data-center or cloud customers. The processor has a mammoth core-count of 192-core/384-thread in its high-density cloud-focused variant that uses "Zen 5c" CPU cores. Its regular version that uses larger "Zen 5" cores that can sustain higher clock speeds, also comes with a fairly high core-count of 128-core/256-thread, up from the 96-core/192-thread of the "Zen 4" based EPYC "Genoa."
The EPYC "Turin" server processor based on "Zen 5" comes with an updated sIOD (server I/O die), surrounded by as many as 16 CCDs (CPU complex dies). AMD is expected to build these CCDs on the TSMC N4P foundry node, which is a more advanced version of the TSMC N4 node the company currently uses for its "Phoenix" client processors, and the TSMC N5 node it uses for its "Zen 4" CCD. TSMC claims that the N4P node offers an up to 22% improvement in power efficiency over N5, as well as a 6% increase in transistor density. Each of the "Zen 5" CCDs is confirmed to have 8 CPU cores sharing 32 MB L3 cache memory. A total of 16 such CCDs add up to the processor's 128-core/256-thread number. The high-density "Turin" meant for cloud data-centers, is a whole different beast.The "Turin" processor uses 12 "Zen 5c" CCDs. Much like "Zen 4c" is to "Zen 4," the "Zen 5c" is a physically compacted version of the larger "Zen 5" core that has the same ISA (instruction sets) and IPC, but typically runs at lower clock speeds than the regular "Zen 5" cores. It's meant for high core-count processors. The high-density "Turin" MCM has the same sIOD as the regular "Turin," but with 12 "Zen 5c" CCDs. Each CCD has 16 "Zen 5c" cores share a 32 MB L3 cache. This is interesting—if you recall, the current "Zen 4c" CCD has two CCX (CPU core complexes) that each has 8 "Zen 4c" cores share a 16 MB L3 cache. The "Zen 5c" CCD doubles the total addressable L3 cache.
Sources:
YuuKi_AnS (Twitter), VideoCardz
The EPYC "Turin" server processor based on "Zen 5" comes with an updated sIOD (server I/O die), surrounded by as many as 16 CCDs (CPU complex dies). AMD is expected to build these CCDs on the TSMC N4P foundry node, which is a more advanced version of the TSMC N4 node the company currently uses for its "Phoenix" client processors, and the TSMC N5 node it uses for its "Zen 4" CCD. TSMC claims that the N4P node offers an up to 22% improvement in power efficiency over N5, as well as a 6% increase in transistor density. Each of the "Zen 5" CCDs is confirmed to have 8 CPU cores sharing 32 MB L3 cache memory. A total of 16 such CCDs add up to the processor's 128-core/256-thread number. The high-density "Turin" meant for cloud data-centers, is a whole different beast.The "Turin" processor uses 12 "Zen 5c" CCDs. Much like "Zen 4c" is to "Zen 4," the "Zen 5c" is a physically compacted version of the larger "Zen 5" core that has the same ISA (instruction sets) and IPC, but typically runs at lower clock speeds than the regular "Zen 5" cores. It's meant for high core-count processors. The high-density "Turin" MCM has the same sIOD as the regular "Turin," but with 12 "Zen 5c" CCDs. Each CCD has 16 "Zen 5c" cores share a 32 MB L3 cache. This is interesting—if you recall, the current "Zen 4c" CCD has two CCX (CPU core complexes) that each has 8 "Zen 4c" cores share a 16 MB L3 cache. The "Zen 5c" CCD doubles the total addressable L3 cache.
40 Comments on AMD 5th Gen EPYC "Turin" Pictured: Who Needs Accelerators When You Have 192 Cores?
Nobody will be using N3 for this product either b/c they will pay $$$$ out the ass for all these CCDs. Neither do they need N3's characteristics - server clocks low, dense core probably even lower. At least until N3E/N3P becomes a mature, affordable node (like N6 was last year, like N5 was this year, like N4 is becoming now).
They've locked the vcore in all Zen4 V-cache SKUs anyway.
Maybe AMD could overcome this limitation with future core designs, who knows.
Italy
The reasoning can go both ways, but I expect they don't focus on cache too much for those compact cores since they also already have half the L3 cache per core.
Interestingly, only the Zen5c will be produced at 3nm, probably because the cache no longer shrinks with new processes.
Zen 5 CCD - 8 (16) cores, 6+ GHz clocks, 15+% IPC
Zen 5c CCD - 16 (32) cores, 5+ GHx clocks, 15+% IPC, 128 MB 3D V cache
Total cores (threads): 24 (48)
Zen 5 IOD - major memory controller improvements (DDR6400+ without going into a lower gear), native USB4, RDNA4 with 4 CUs
I am curious as to the performance and efficiency of these compared to the
Ampere AltraAmpereOne 192-core ARM-based CPU.Even worse, they think their products are worthy of bearing the said names! In all honesty, your question (albeit humorous) sounds a lot like 'We have no butter…but I ask you—would you rather have butter or guns?' to me. :)
Probably doesn't align with known N3P schedule, but if Zen 5 debuts in middle of 2024 then I guess it makes sense for N3E maturity/adoption.