Videocardz has done it again. A few hours before the official launch of AMD’s EPYC 3 lineup (codenamed Milan and officially the 7003 series), the full SKU list and pricing were leaked by WhyCry. The AMD EPYC 7003 ‘ Milan’ lineup features AMD’s Zen 3 microarchitecture and will provide a significant step up in IPC for enterprise and data center customers in the EPYC ecosystem.
AMD launches EPYC 3 ‘Milan’ with EPYC 7003 processors, up to 64 Zen 3 cores at 3.5 GHz
Before we go any further, here is the official announcement: (which is due in about 4 hours at the time of writing)
AMD to Host Digital Launch of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ Processors on March 15, 2021
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) will host a digital global launch of the new 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processors on Monday, March 15, 2021 at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET.
The digital launch is slated to feature presentations by AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su, Executive Vice President of Technology and Engineering and CTO Mark Papermaster, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Datacenter and Embedded Solutions Business Group, Forrest Norrod, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Server Business Unit, Dan McNamara and appearances by industry-leading data center partners and customers.
The launch will be accessible on the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC launch site starting at 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET. A replay of the webcast can be accessed after the conclusion of the live stream event and will be available for one year after the event.
The primary difference between Rome (EPYC 2) and Milan (EPYC 3) is the difference in microarchitecture. Where EPYC 2 used Zen 2, EPYC 3 will use Zen 3. The only other difference is in the clock speed (because of a more mature 7nm process). Where Zen 2 based parts could clock to a maximum of 3.9GHz on the lightest SKU, Zen 3 can clock up to 4.1 GHz. The wattage remains the same at 280W and both parts have access to 128 lanes of PCIe 4. RAM also remains constant at 8 channel DDR4 3200 EEC. Both Rome and Milan have an 8 CCD design with 1 IO tile. All EPYC 3 parts contain 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0 , 8 channels of DDR4 and 3200 MHz EEC support.
Source: unknown, image via Videocardz
The flagship SKU is the EPYC 7763 with 64 cores / 128 threads and a boost clock of 3.5 GHz. It is coupled with an L3 cache of 256 MB and it will be sold for $7890 or $123 per core. This is actually pretty expensive as far as AMD pricing goes which has historically been as low as $55 per core. To be fair, however, you can also get an EPYC 7713P for $5010 or $78 per core which is far more reasonable. The cheapest EPYC 3 SKU is the EPYC 7313P with 16 cores / 32 threads for $913 or $57 per core (which is about the same as historical AMD pricing).
Keep in mind that all of these processors support error-correcting memory – which is a must-have in the data center environment and represent an overall reduction in TCO (total cost of ownership) considering the larger running cost savings. AMD’s EPYC 3 platform will be going up against Intel’s Ice Lake server lineup which is expected to launch sometime in 2H 2020.
The only issue with AMD EPYC parts that we can foresee that might give Intel the edge is one of supply. Since all roads lead back to TSMC and the Taiwanese foundry is currently severely supply bottlenecked due to orders from pretty much everyone and their mother, AMD’s obviously winning EPYC parts are going to be limited by the number of wafers TSMC can churn out. This might give Intel some breathing room to catch up once Ice Lake launches – assuming of course, that it doesn’t get delayed like every other 10nm launch so far. The official launch will happen in a few hours.
