AMD's EPYC Genoa-X server processors with 3D V-Cache will arrive later this year. An alleged engineering sample (ES) of the EPYC 9684X has gone up on sale for $1,300 on a second-hand Chinese selling platform. The Goofish seller claims the processor wields 96 cores and 1,152MB of L3 cache.
Genoa-X, which will feature TSMC's 5nm process node, is the follow-up to AMD's previous EPYC Milan-X chips. The upcoming Genoa-X chips will continue to leverage AMD's Zen 4 cores, just like the vanilla Genoa parts, and top out at 96 cores and 192 threads. However, the main attraction is the implementation of AMD's 3D V-Cache to boost Genoa-X's L3 cache over 1GB.
The photographs for the EPYC 9684X reportedly show that the chip pertains to the EPYC 9004-series lineup. In addition, the "110.10 SP5" marking and the picture of the rear of the processor seemingly corroborate that it's at least an EPYC chip and slots into the Socket SP5 (LGA6096). Hardware leaker YuuKi_AnS mentioned the EPYC 9684X as the flagship Genoa-X SKU so the chip exists. Unfortunately, the seller didn't share screenshots of the EPYC 9684X.
AMD Genoa-X Specifications*
| Processor | Cores | Threads | L3 Cache (MB) | TDP (W) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPYC 9684X | 96 | 192 | 1,152 | 400 |
| EPYC 7773X | 64 | 128 | 768 | 280 |
| EPYC 9384X | 32 | 64 | 1,152 | 320 |
| EPYC 7573X | 32 | 64 | 768 | 280 |
| EPYC 9284X | 24 | 48 | 1,152 | 320 |
| EPYC 7473X | 24 | 48 | 768 | 240 |
| EPYC 9184X | 16 | 32 | 1,152 | 320 |
| EPYC 7373X | 16 | 32 | 768 | 240 |
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
However, given the merchant's claims that the EPYC 9684X has 96 Zen 4 cores, it's likely the flagship SKU for the Genoa-X lineup. There's also reportedly 1,152MB of L3 cache. It's a substantial improvement over Milan-X. Milan-X has 768MB of L3 cache; therefore, Genoa-X represents a whopping 50% increase. The cache layout also consists of 96MB of L2 cache and 3MB of L1 cache. Genoa-X will sport a 1,251MB total cache per chip if we factor in all the caches.
We already know that the regular Genoa has a maximum L3 cache of 384MB. The 3D V-Cache contributes the remaining 768MB on Genoa-X. It's pretty impressive what AMD has done with Genoa-X. The 3D V-Cache alone on Genoa-X is equivalent to the total L3 cache on Milan-X.
With Milan-X, AMD released four SKUs in total: EPYC 7773X (64 cores), EPYC 7573X (32 cores), EPYC 7473X (243 cores), and EPYC 7373X (16 cores). Assuming that YuuKi_AnS' insider information is accurate, Genoa-X should follow the same model and arrive with similar core counts with 1,152MB of L3 cache.
Genoa pushed the core count up to 96 cores from the 64 cores in Milan. Logically, the TDP is also higher. Genoa has a TDP of up to 360W, 29% higher than Milan. It's reasonable for us to fathom that Genoa-X could land with a higher TDP rating. According to the Genoa-X leak, AMD may keep the flagship EPYC 9684X at 400W and restrain the other chips to 320W.
Therefore, the EPYC 9684X's TDP is only 11% higher than the regular 96-core EPYC 9654. Compared to the previous EPYC 7773X, though, we're looking at a 43% increase. Furthermore, the TDP increments vary between the different SKUs. For example, the EPYC 9384X appears to have a 14% higher TDP than the EPYC 7573X, whereas the EPYC 9284X and EPYC 9184X TDPs are 33% greater than the EPYC 7473X and EPYC 7373X.
Genoa already offers AMD's data center customers big performance thanks to the generous amount of Zen 4 cores. Genoa-X will undoubtedly build upon that and provide extra firepower for latency-sensitive workloads. Genoa-X will launch in 2023, although AMD hasn't specified when.
