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IT News Online Staff2020-04-18

AMD has extended the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor family with three new processors that combine the balanced and efficient AMD Infinity architecture with higher speed "Zen 2" cores for optimal performance on database, commercial high-performance computing (HPC) and hyperconverged infrastructure workloads.

The AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors provide new performance capabilities for workloads in the heart of the enterprise market including database with up to 17 percent higher SQL Server performance compared to the competition, hyperconverged infrastructure with up to 47 percent higher VMmark 3.1 score (using vSAN as the storage tier in a 4-node cluster) compared to the competition for a new world record, and commercial high-performance computing (HPC) with up to 94 percent higher per core computational fluid dynamics individual application performance compared to the competition.

"AMD EPYC continues to redefine the modern data center, and with the addition of three powerful new processors we are enabling our customers to unlock even better outcomes at the heart of the enterprise market," said Dan McNamara, senior vice president and general manager, server business unit, AMD. "With our trusted partners, together we are pushing the limits of per core performance and value in hyperconverged infrastructure, commercial HPC and relational database workloads."

A Balanced System That's More than Gigahertz

The new 2nd Gen AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors provide leading per core performance and breakthrough value, while adding the highest per core performance of the EPYC family.

The performance of these new processors comes from a balanced architecture that combines high-performance "Zen 2" cores, innovations in system design like PCIe 4 and DDR4-3200 memory, and the AMD Infinity architecture, to provide customers with optimum system performance that enables better real world application performance.

Ecosystem Growing with AMD EPYC

The ecosystem of OEMs, cloud providers, ISVs and IHVs using 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors continues to grow, with existing OEMs and new partners adopting the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors.

Dell Technologies will support all three processors across its entire lineup of AMD EPYC based Dell EMC PowerEdge servers, including the R6525, which holds a world record 2P Four-Node Benchmark Result on VMmark 3 with VMware vSAN.

"These new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors enable Dell EMC PowerEdge servers to drive substantial performance benefits for customer business applications like database and hyperconverged infrastructure, where Dell EMC PowerEdge servers hold a world record in benchmark performance. Our customers will truly benefit from these new processors as we continue to grow our AMD EPYC family of PowerEdge platforms," said Rajesh Pohani, vice president, Server Platform Product Management, Dell Technologies.

HPE continues to expand its offerings using 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors with latest support of HPE SimpliVity, an intelligent hyper-converged infrastructure solution. HPE will also support all three AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors on the recently announced HPE Apollo 2000 Gen10 Plus system, HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen10 Plus server and HPE ProLiant DX servers.

"We are pleased to expand support of the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors across our portfolios, which include new additions with the HPE Apollo 2000 Gen10 Plus system, HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen10 Plus server and HPE ProLiant DX servers to meet high-frequency and performance needs for our customers in high-performance computing and database environments," said Peter Ungaro, senior vice president and general manager, HPC and Mission Critical Solutions (MCS), HPE.

IBM Cloud is the first cloud provider to offer its clients the AMD EPYC 7F72 processors in their bare metal offering, providing access to fast, high core-count dual socket bare metal servers. Additionally, IBM recently announced the availability of its first bare metal server powered by the AMD EPYC 7642 processor.

"We are excited to be the first cloud provider to support the new AMD EPYC 7F72 processor. Now, IBM Cloud provides access to another high core-count dual socket bare metal server with high clock speed frequency, giving our clients more optimized platform choices for compute-intense workloads such as analytics, commercial HPC and EDA. We stay committed to enabling flexible and powerful bare metal experiences for clients to enhance performance and throughput," said Satinder Sethi, general manager, IBM Cloud Infrastructure Services.

Lenovo will support the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors on its ThinkSystem SR635 and SR655 platforms. These ThinkSystem platforms are already a great choice for a variety of enterprise workloads including data analytics, software defined storage and infrastructure for remote workers. Lenovo's storage and PCIe capabilities coupled with AMD EPYC core count and I/O density will help provide customers with choice as their business needs evolve. These new higher frequency 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors, with an increased core clock speed up to 15 percent, in the single socket ThinkSystem platform, provides customers with greater options for workloads where per core performance is critical. Lenovo's one socket optimized platforms with these new processors allow customers to deploy these platforms where traditionally two socket systems were used, providing power and SW licensing costs savings.

"Today's business dynamics are presenting customers with new challenges to improve speed, cost and performance. We feel confident we have the right portfolio to provide our customers with enhanced choice as organizations look to enable remote working capabilities and manage their increased data and storage requirements," said Kamran Amini, vice president and general manager, Server, Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure, Lenovo Data Center Group.

Microsoft recognizes the impact the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors have on providing Microsoft data platform customers the best experience possible, including an up to 17 percent higher SQL Server TPM per core performance. "Microsoft data platform solutions help customers release the potential hidden in data and reveal insights and opportunities to transform a business. A critical part of this process is making sure a database has access to an efficient, powerful and fast processor and that's exactly what the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors provide Microsoft data platform solutions customers," said Jamie Reding, SQL Server program manager, Microsoft.

Nutanix, in conjunction with HPE, announced that it expects that Nutanix HCI software will be supported on select AMD EPYC based HPE ProLiant servers by May. As well, HPE announced the upcoming availability of AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors on HPE ProLiant DX servers in Q3.

"We are excited to have validated Nutanix's HCI software for 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor based HPE ProLiant systems. This will bring 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor support to Nutanix software, giving more flexibility and choice to our customers while unleashing greater workload performance for databases, analytics, VDI and other virtualized business critical applications," said Tarkan Maner, chief commercial officer, Nutanix.

Supermicro is launching the industry's first blade platform built for 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors with immediate support for the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors combined with integrated 25G Ethernet and optional 100G EDR InfiniBand support with 200G HDR in the near future. In addition, all Supermicro A+ platforms including Ultra, GPU, WIO, Twin and Mainstream systems will support the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors immediately.

"Adding the new SuperBlade platform to our extensive portfolio of products supporting the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors gives our customers another powerful choice when redefining their modern data center. Leveraging support for the new AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors, our latest SuperBlade and Supermicro A+ platforms further excel at database, EDA and other data-intensive workloads," said Vik Malyala, senior vice president, Field Application Engineering and Business Development, Supermicro.

VMware has added support for the new 2nd Gen AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors, providing customers with access to powerful virtualization platforms.

"The 2nd Gen AMD EPYC 7Fx2 processors bring new value to VMware customers. They provide a unique balance of strong per core performance coupled with an industry-leading per-processor memory capacity of 4 TB. A key element of VMware vSphere, vSAN and now VMware Cloud Foundation market success has been our commitment to helping customers quickly adopt the latest hardware innovation," said Richard A. Brunner, chief technology officer, Server Platform Technologies, VMware.

The new processors are available now through multiple OEMs and IBM Cloud.

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AMD Extends 2nd Gen AMD EPYC Processor Family with New Processors - IT News Online