AMD EPYC 7401P: 24 Cores / 48 Threads At Just Over $1000

We've been looking at the interesting AMD EPYC server processors recently from the high-end EPYC 7601 to the cheapest EPYC 7251 at under $500 as well as the EPYC 7351P that offers 16 cores / 32 threads for only about $750. The latest EPYC processor for testing at Phoronix has been the EPYC 7401P, a 24 core / 48 thread part that is slated to retail for around $1075 USD.

The EPYC 7401P is another "1P" part meaning it will only work for single-socket systems unlike the "2P" rated EPYC processors capable of running in a dual socket configuration. But even for being limited to a single socket, the EPYC 7401P packs in 24 cores / 48 threads and retails at a relatively modest $1075 USD for considering the server market.

The EPYC 7401P has a 2.0GHz base frequency that's lower than the recently reviewed EPYC 7351P at 2.4GHz, but the boost frequency on the 7401P can hit 3.0GHz compared to 2.9GHz with that lower-end $750 1P processor. The base and maximum frequencies of the 7401P match that of the highest-end 1P part, the 7551P, which is a 32 core / 64 thread configuration for about two grand. The EPYC 7401P features a 64MB L3 cache and 512kB cache per core, eight memory channels at DDR4-2666, and a 170 Watt TDP.

As with the other EPYC processors we have tested thus far, the EPYC 7401P has been working out fine with all of our Linux testing to date. The EPYC processor testing has been done in conjunction with a Tyan Transport SX TN70A-B8026 2U server. This Tyan platform has been working out well for all our initial EPYC testing and is loaded with 8 x 16GB DDR4-2666 memory and a Samsung 850 PRO SSD as the main components.

As with the other recent tests, Ubuntu 17.10 x86_64 instead of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. The 17.10 release was used over 16.04 since these numbers are more representative of what users will find with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS in just a few months. Additionally, 17.10 offers a newer version of the Linux kernel and most notably GCC 7.2 to provide for better EPYC support. Ubuntu 17.10 was tested with the Linux 4.13 kernel, GCC 7.2.0, and using an EXT4 file-system for the Samsung SSD. We were also using the "performance" P-State/CPUFreq governor on each of the systems tested and for relevant tests run with "numactl --interleave=all."

The processors tested this round included:

- AMD EPYC 7251
- AMD EPYC 7351P
- AMD EPYC 7401P
- AMD EPYC 7601
- Intel Xeon E3-1245 v5
- Intel Xeon E3-1280 v5
- Intel Xeon E5-1680 v3
- Intel Xeon E5-2609 v4
- Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3
- Intel Xeon Silver 4108
- Intel Xeon Gold 6138
- 2 x Intel Xeon Gold 6138

Our last EPYC processor currently available for testing that will be featured in its own article in the next few days is the EPYC 7551. The EPYC CPU samples were provided by AMD and the Tyan Transport barebones server graciously provided by Tyan. All of these AMD/Intel server CPU benchmarks were carried out via the Phoronix Test Suite.