▷ Amd ryzen threadripper and amd epyc 【all the information】

AMD Ryzen Threadripper and AMD EPYC are AMD's most powerful processors, both are based on Zen architecture and a very ingenious design that has allowed to manufacture chips with tremendous power, without the costs of their development having skyrocketed. The relationship between quality and price is very important for users, and AMD has demonstrated with these processors that it knows how to handle this parameter better than anyone.

In reality, both processors are almost identical to each other, but they have some differences that allow them to be focused on different segments. In this post we are going to analyze all the keys of these sensational processors and how they compare to the competition.

Index of contents

A gigantic design but with brutal characteristics

The great versatility of the Infinity Fabric bus has allowed AMD to manufacture processors with a multi-chip design. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper and EPYC are very similar to each other, all consisting of four silicon pickups interconnected by Infinity Fabric. In essence, they are four processors glued together. EPYCs are server processors, and Threadrippers are their home version. All of them are manufactured in 14 nm FinFET, using the same dies as in AMD Ryzen for the AM4 platform.

Due to this design, they are very large processors, so the existing cooling systems at launch were not compatible. The big manufacturers of heatsinks got down to work to offer solutions with a much larger copper base than they were used to offering, and capable of covering the entire surface of the heat diffuser of these chips.

This design allows AMD to save a lot on costs compared to monolithic processors, although in return the performance is somewhat lower due to the latency of the communication through Infinity Fabric. Ryzen Threadripper offers up to 16 cores and 32 threads, while EPYC offers up to 32 cores and 64 threads. The differences between them are that Ryzen Threadripper uses a TR4 socket and a four-channel memory controller, while EPYC uses the SP3 socket and an eight-channel memory controller. Another differentiating feature is that EPYC allows configurations of two sockets on the same motherboard, which offers the great possibility of having a total of 64 cores and 128 processing threads on a single motherboard, a real pass.

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Infinity fabric

The following image shows how AMD has used its Infinity Fabric technology to interconnect all the internal elements of these multi-chip processors. In the case of motherboards with two sockets for EPYC, Infinity Fabric will also be in charge of making the communication between the two installed processors. As we can see, Infinity Fabric has been the cornerstone that has allowed AMD to manufacture these monstrous processors. AMD should strive to improve the weaknesses of Infinity Fabric in future generations, so that its products can be even better and convince more users.

AMD EPYC, server processors

AMD EPYC is the current AMD platform for servers, some processors that have come to succeed the previous Opteron based on the Bulldozer architecture. In this way, all the benefits of Zen have also reached the sector of large servers.

AMD EPYC processors have several advantages, as do Intel Xeon. The ability to bring two processors together on the same motherboard gives AMD the ability to offer 47% more performance than the Intel platform, as well as 45% more cores to handle a large number of tasks without performance suffers.

Putting two processors together on the same motherboard also doubles the number of memory channels to sixteen, offering 122% more bandwidth than the Intel Xeon platform, which is made up of an eight-channel memory controller. Increased bandwidth is essential in the server environment, since it handles a huge volume of data. A last advantage of AMD EPYC is that it offers 60% more I / O, this translates into a greater number of PCI Express lanes and connectivity in general, improving the possibilities of the platform.

A greater number of PCI Express lanes offers a multitude of advantages to users, such as the possibility of installing several graphics cards that will work together to improve the performance of the equipment, and a high number of storage units based on the NVMe protocol. Thanks to this, users of AMD Threadripper processors will be able to enjoy enormous graphic processing potential as well as high storage capacity at the highest possible speed.

Another very important advantage of AMD Threadripper is the greater longevity of AMD sockets, in fact the second generation of these processors are fully compatible with the motherboards available today. This second generation of AMD Threadripper offers up to 32 cores and 64 threads in the case of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, a configuration that greatly exceeds the 18 cores and 36 threads of the Core i9 7980XE.

This higher number of cores gives the AMD Threadripper platform a greater potential than its rival, especially for software users capable of taking advantage of all the processor cores. The Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX is a real beast when it comes to rendering, being up to 51% faster than the Core i9 7980XE and for a price similar to this one. Time is money at work, making the AMD platform a great choice for professionals. Although if you want to see a more detailed comparison, we leave you our article on AMD Threadripper 2990WX vs Intel Core i9 7980 XE.

This ends our special post on AMD Ryzen Threadripper and AMD EPYC, everything you need to know, remember to leave a comment if you have any suggestions or questions. We also invite you to visit our hardware forum.