AMD Launches The EPYC 8004 "Siena" 4th Gen EPYC Processors

Last November AMD introduced the first of the 4th Gen EPYC series with the EPYC 9004 "Genoa" processors and that was then complemented earlier this year by the July launch of the Genoa-X processors for sporting AMD 3D V-Cache to help technical computing workloads and as well launching Bergamo for the Zen 4C based processor designs that allow up to 128 cores / 256 threads per socket. While AMD has a very robust portfolio for the high-end server space with 4th Gen EPYC, today AMD is introducing the EPYC 8004 "Siena" processors for "intelligent edge" servers. Siena is a step below Genoa but still very capable offering and coming in at a lower price point while being geared more for maximizing power efficiency and opening up EPYC to more deployments outside of the data center.

AMD EPYC Genoa(X) and Bergamo have been hitting it out of the ballpark when it comes to delivering leading server and HPC performance in 2023. There is incredible performance offered by these 4th Gen EPYC parts for a wide variety of workloads and where looking to maximize the per-server CPU capacity, very memory bandwidth intensive workloads where the 12 channels of DDR5 memory performance do wonders, or looking to leverage a large L3 cache with the Genoa-X processors. At the very low-end there is also AMD Ryzen 7000 series for budget servers while now fitting between the Ryzen 7000 series parts and EPYC 9004 series processors is the EPYC 8004 series with Siena.

The Siena processors go up to 64 cores / 128 threads per socket, support up to six channels of DDR5 memory, Zen 4C cores in optimizing for density, and a number of power efficiency optimized SKU to make a nice balance of cost effective and robust processors. AMD engineers designed Siena with edge computing and the "intelligent edge" in mind as well as for telco markets. With the Zen 4C cores Siena has very competitive performance-per-Watt, the processors are thermally optimized for running in a range of environments from conventional data centers to hot edge deployments in the field, and the platform is designed to be very flexible.

AMD EPYC Siena processors use the new "SP6" socket that is similar to Socket SP3 and not nearly as large as Socket SP5 used by the EPYC 9904 series. The initial EPYC 8004 product stack ranges from 8 core / 16 thread processors with a 70 Watt TDP up to 64 cores / 128 threads with a 225 Watt TDP, well below the 96 cores or 128 cores and up to 400 Watts found with EPYC 9004 series parts. All of the EPYC 8004 series are using the Zen 4C cores and have six channels of DDR5-4800 memory support. The Siena processors are also cut-down from the 128 lanes per socket of PCIe Gen 5 down to 96 lanes of PCIe Gen 5. On the CXL side Siena supports 48 lanes on P links configured for CXL 1.1+ compared to 64 lanes on Genoa/Bergamo. Siena is also a single-socket only solution: unlike Genoa and Bergamo appearing in many dual socket server designs, for the target market of Siena all the processors are only for 1P designs.

The EPYC 8004 series consists of P and PN parts: the "PN" processors are NEBS friendly for the Network Equipment Building System specification. These PN parts support an operating temperature range from -5 C to 85 Celsius compared to the P-only parts having a 0 to 75 degree Celsius range. With the PN parts there is also no configurable TDP. The PN SKUs tend to be clocked slightly lower than the P SKUs while running at a lower TDP too.

At the bottom end is the EPYC 8024P as a 8-core / 16-thread part with a 90 Watt TDP (cTDP down to 70 Watts) for $409 USD or $525 for the 8024PN. At the top-end of the stack is the 64-core 8534P with a 2.3GHz base frequency and 3.1GHz boost frequency while having a 200 Watt TDP and a price tag of $4950 USD. The top-end PN SKU is the 64-core 8534PN at $5450 USD.

All of the same ISA features as Genoa(X) and Bergamo are supported by Siena: including AVX-512. SMT is also supported across all of the EPYC 8004 series SKUs.

The AMD EPYC 8004 series performance is looking competitive against the Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" competition. The power efficiency is really where AMD outright leads. Phoronix benchmarks of the AMD EPYC 8004 "Siena" parts will be coming in an article(s) in the near future.

Overall the EPYC 8004 series "Siena" processors are quite interesting and open up Zen 4(C) EPYC to new markets at lower price points and TDPs than what is targeted by Genoa. The new EPYC 8004 series PN parts should be quite interesting for running EPYC within more harsh or changing environments. It will be interesting to see what the platform/motherboard costs end up being for SP6 Siena parts and should be more suitable for those not needing 6+ memory channels, not as much PCIe or CXL connectivity, etc. Siena is very complementary to Genoa(X) and Bergamo and fills a nice void between them and then AMD Ryzen for more budget-minded and SOHO/SMB server deployments. Excitingly the same software support and CPU ISA capabilities (including AVX-512) is maintained across the entire product stack as well as the presence of SMT. Stay tuned for AMD EPYC 8004 series benchmarks on Phoronix in the coming weeks.