The AMD EPYC 9655 is a server/workstation processor with 96 cores, launched in October 2024, at an MSRP of $11852. It is part of the EPYC lineup, using the Zen 5 (Turin) architecture with Socket SP5. Thanks to AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) the core-count is effectively doubled, to 192 threads. To further increase overall system performance, up to two EPYC 9655 CPUs can work together in a multi-processor (SMP) configuration. EPYC 9655 has 384 MB of L3 cache and operates at 2.6 GHz by default, but can boost up to 4.5 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is making the EPYC 9655 on a 4 nm production node using 99,780 million transistors. The silicon die of the chip is not fabricated at AMD, but at the foundry of TSMC. The multiplier is locked on EPYC 9655, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 400 W, the EPYC 9655 is extremely power hungry, which means you need top-notch cooling. AMD's processor supports DDR5 memory with a twelve-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 6000 MT/s, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. ECC memory is supported, too, which is an important capability for mission-critical systems, to avoid data corruption. For communication with other components in the computer, EPYC 9655 uses a PCI-Express Gen 5 connection. This processor lacks integrated graphics, you might need a graphics card.
Hardware virtualization is available on the EPYC 9655, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, AMD has added support for the newer AVX2 and AVX-512 instructions, too.