AMD EPYC 7F52 Linux Performance - AMD 7FX2 CPUs Further Increasing The Fight Against Intel Xeon

AMD today is announcing three new EPYC 7002 "Rome" SKUs in the form of the 7F32, 7F52, and 7F72 processors. The AMD 7F52 processors we have been recently testing and offers some impressive performance potential as while it's a 16-core / 32-thread part it offers an impressive 256MB L3 cache (16MB per core). Here are our initial Linux benchmarks of the AMD EPYC 7F52 in 1P and 2P configurations up against various AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors.

The AMD EPYC 7F52 16-core / 32-thread processor has a 256MB L3 cache and a 3.5GHz base frequency with 3.9GHz boost frequency. This Zen 2 server CPU has a $3100 one thousand unit pricing and aims to be able to deliver better performance-per-dollar than the likes of the Xeon Gold 6242/6246R CPUs. The EPYC 7F72 also launching today is a 24-core / 48-thread CPU but with just a 192MB L3 cache and 3.2GHz base frequency and 3.7GHz turbo -- that 24-core part will retail for about $2450 USD. Meanwhile the lower-tier AMD EPYC 7F32 part is 8-core / 16-thread with a 128MB L3 cache and a 3.7GHz base frequency with 3.9GHz boost. Both the 7F52 and 7F72 are rated for a 240 Watt TDP while the 7F32 has a 180 Watt rating.

The AMD EPYC 7Fx2 line-up is otherwise spec'ed similarly to the existing EPYC 7002 parts with DDR4-3200 eight channel support, PCI Express Gen 4, and obviously 7nm based. The 16MB L3 cache per core on the 7F32 and 7F52 are what really make these new CPUs special and allow for some very interesting performance benefits.

The CPUs tested for this launch-day EPYC 7F52 benchmarking included:

- Xeon Silver 4216
- 2 x Xeon Silver 4216
- Xeon Gold 5218
- Xeon Gold 5220R
- 2 x Xeon Gold 5220R
- Xeon Gold 6226R
- 2 x Xeon Gold 6226R
- 2 x EPYC 7252
- 2 x EPYC 7272
- EPYC 7302P
- 2 x EPYC 7302
- 2 x EPYC 7352
- 2 x EPYC 7452
- EPYC 7502P
- 2 x EPYC 7532
- EPYC 7F52
- 2 x EPYC 7F52

The CPUs tested based upon what I had available for testing as well as the time for re-testing prior to this morning's embargo lift. All of these processors were freshly (re)tested using a near final snapshot of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS for providing forward-looking results ahead of the official Ubuntu 20.04 release next week. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is using the Linux 5.4 kernel, GCC 9, updated GNU C Library and a wealth of other updates compared to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or other current enterprise Linux releases.

Each processor was tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS using an Intel Optane 900p 280GB NVMe solid-state drive and with RAM at the maximum supported frequency and number of memory channels for each of the CPUs under test.

Via the Phoronix Test Suite dozens of different tests were carried out. In this article is an initial look at the AMD EPYC 7F52 performance while in the days/weeks ahead will be more fresh EPYC vs. Xeon benchmark results on the likes of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS in varying configurations.