AMDNaples has been previewed and will soon be heading out to high-performance servers around the globe. Based on AMD's Zen architecture, Naples chips will feature a very dense architecture, packed with lots of compute performance.

AMD Naples High-Performance Zen Based Server SOCs Previewed - 32 Core, 64 Threaded Chips That Pack Over 19 Billion Transistors, Aimed at The Compute Hungry 1P and 2P Platforms

AMD Naples has been crafted to challenge Intel in a space they have long dominated with their Xeon lineup. This hot battle will take place in the server market with AMD Naples at one end and Intel’s Xeon at the other. AMD has several Zen Naples SKUs ranging from 16 cores and up to 32 core variants. Each of them is multi-threaded so performance is going to be top-notch on this part since Zen has a behemoth 52% IPC increase over its Opteron based predecessors. Along with performance, 14nm FinFET would also prove a great process for efficiency optimizations.

AMD Naples Features:

A highly scalable, 32-core System on Chip (SoC) design, with support for two high-performance threads per coreIndustry-leading memory bandwidth, with 8-channels of memory per “Naples” device. In a 2-socket server, support for up to 32 DIMMS of DDR4 on 16 memory channels, delivering up to 4 terabytes of total memory capacity.The processor is a complete SoC with fully integrated, high-speed I/O supporting 128 lanes of PCIe 3, negating the need for a separate chipsetA highly-optimized cache structure for high-performance, energy efficient computeAMD Infinity Fabric coherent interconnect for two “Naples” CPUs in a 2-socket systemDedicated security hardware

The Zen core comprises of a CPU complex. Each CPU complex features four cores that are connected to 8 MB of L3 cache. Zen based server chips with 32 cores can feature up to 64MB of L3 cache which is quite disruptive. This along with 64 threads available for hyper-threaded workloads would make for a very competitive product in server platforms. A single Ryzen 8 core chip packs 4.8 Billion transistors so we can take a guess that Naples would be packing over 19 Billion transistors which is a hefty amount for a server chip. For full details on the Zen microarchitecture, you can check out a detailed article here.

A high performance AMD Naples based server rack. (Image Credits: Computerbase)

AMD Naples Performance Metrics:

The new AMD server processor exceeds today’s top competitive offering on critical parameters, with 45% more cores, 60% more input / output capacity (I/O), and 122% more memory bandwidth. AMD compared performance metrics of their flagship chip with Intel's top Xeon offering, the Xeon E5-2699 V4. The Intel chip is based on the Broadwell architecture and uses a similar 14nm process node.

Some key comparisons indicate that a dual socket platform utilizing AMD Naples chips features more cores (128 vs 88), more memory channels (16 vs 8), more memory capacity using 16 GB DRAM sticks (512 GB vs 384 GB), higher memory frequency (2400 MHz vs 1866 MHz) and higher PCIe lanes (128 vs 80).

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“It is exciting to see AMD back in the server conversation with a new CPU and a sound strategy for why it is the right processor for the modern datacenter and the cloud computing era,” said Matt Eastwood, senior vice president, Enterprise Infrastructure and Datacenter, IDC. “Looking at the product details announced today, it sounds like a compelling combination that will give IT buyers a unique new option to consider when making their next upgrade.” via AMD

Upcoming Intel and AMD Server Platform Comparison: