How 2nd-Gen EPYC Compares To 2nd-Gen Xeon Scalable

One of AMD's main talking points about the second-generation EPYC processors is how they provide better performance over Intel's second-generation Xeon Scalable processors at lower prices.

In the case of AMD's top-line EPYC 7742 processor, for instance, the 64-core processor demonstrated a 180 percent improvement in integer performance for cloud workloads over the Intel Xeon Platinum 8280M, which comes with 28 cores. Comparing the same processors, 64-core EPYC achieved 88 percent higher performance for floating point and 83 percent higher for virtualization.

While AMD's entire stack of EPYC processors feature more cores than Intel's Xeon Scalable processors, Intel's server processors still feature higher clock speeds, allowing the semiconductor giant to remain competitive against AMD for single-threaded performance, according to Ars Technica.

AMD demonstrated price-performance advantages of its new processor line against the entire Xeon product stack, with the performance-per-dollar advantage ranging from roughly 1.8X to 4X.

With its $6,950 list price, the 64-core EPYC 7742 is less than half the $13,012 list price of the Xeon Platinum 8280M, providing what AMD said is four-fold performance-per-dollar advantage over Intel's.

The mid-range 32-core EPYC 7452 costs roughly $250 more than the 12-core Xeon Gold 6226, but provides more than double the performance, providing a two-fold price-performance advantage.

Meanwhile, the low-range 16-core EPYC 7282 costs $144 less than the eight-core Xeon Silver 4215 but also provides more than double the performance, providing a performance-per-dollar advantage that is two-and-a-half times greater than Intel.

The chipmaker said its single-socket processors, ranging from 64 cores to eight cores, outperforms not only Intel's entire single-socket Xeon product stack but Intel's dual-socket Xeon processors as well when it comes to integer performance based on the SPECrate 2017_int_peak benchmark.