AMD announced its EPYC Milan-X series CPUs with the important new 3D V-Cache feature that improves L3 cache capacity, as well as other performance-enhancing optimizations.
EPYC Milan-X: Microsoft proves its capabilities in performance tests
One of AMD’s big partners in the server space is Microsoft, which also uses EPYC processors in its cloud services.
Microsoft has published a series of performance tests with the new EPYC “Milan-X” to show why they chose these CPUs.
The EPYC Milan-X has up to 768 MB of L3 cache (L3 + 3D V-cache) per chip. On a dual-socket machine, the L3 cache capacity increases to 1.5 GB per virtual machine, according to Microsoft. Of course, the L3 allocation depends on the configuration, which is one of the advantages of virtualization. The L3 cache capacity would be three times larger than the traditional Milan series.
Compared to its predecessor, the EPYC Milan-X processors outperform Intel Skylake by 77% in a 64VM configuration and by as much as 257% when using the f1_racecar_140 model in Ansys Fluent 2021 R1″.
When using the combustor_830m model in conjunction with the 128-VM configuration, AMD’s Milan-X performs 16% better than Milan and 131% better than Skylake. In the OpenFOAM engine test, the new series performs 60% and 305% better than Milan and Skylake in a VM configuration, respectively.
Microsoft is trying to show how they can improve the performance of their servers without driving up their costs or making a multi-million dollar investment, as the EPYC Milan-X series does not require new motherboards to run.
This new AMD series will be available in the first quarter of 2022.