AMD EPYC Genoa Pictured: 12 CPU Chiplets For 96 Zen 4 Cores

Hot on the heels of an image of AMD's socket SP5 (LGA6096) that emerged a couple of days ago, a member of the Chiphell community (via HXL) published a picture of what he claims is AMD's alleged EPYC 7004-series 'Genoa' processor. The image is a cutout from a marketing material that TF AMD Microelectronics from Malaysia (via VideoCardz) recently posted online.

Since AMD's SP5 processor packaging is huge to enable 12 memory channels and higher thermal design power (up to 700W, according to some leaks), there is a lot of space for CPU chiplets and an I/O die. Indeed, we see 12 chiplets, each carrying eight Zen 4 cores. The flagship Genoa chip packs 96 cores, 192 threads, and AMD's next-generation I/O die supporting PCI Express 5.0 and several other innovations. However, AMD will also launch different SKUs with fewer cores; therefore, some of those chiplets will likely come disabled on some models. Another discovery on the chip is a rather complicated power delivery system with eight rows of capacitors.

Meanwhile, since the chiplets and the I/O die look too thick, we would say that the published image depicts a mockup of AMD's next-generation server processor rather than a sample of the product. Nonetheless, the photograph still shows AMD's Zen4-based EPYC 7004-series CPU without its integrated heat spreader.

Since we might be dealing with a mockup or a mechanical sample of AMD's next-generation EPYC 7004-series processor, we would refrain from making assumptions about die sizes of Zen 4 and next-generation I/O die chiplets.

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Genoa will drop into the new LGA6096 socket, 2,002 more pins than the current LGA4094 socket that AMD has been reusing for its EPYC processors. The LGA6096 socket should have a long life expectancy as AMD has confirmed that Bergamo will use the same LGA6096 socket. Bergamo, which will replace Genoa down the line, will see a substantial core upgrade up to 128 Zen 4 C cores. Besides that, Bergamo should have a similar feature set as Genoa.

Besides the transition from 64 cores to 96 cores, Genoa also wields the prowess of AMD's next-generation Zen 4 cores, PCIe 5.0 connectivity, and DDR5 support. Since last year, AMD has started sampling Genoa to its partners, so the new 5nm data centers should debut this year.