AMD says that the Zen 4-based Genoa EPYC processor is expected to launch in 2022, just like its desktop counterpart. A Reddit post revealed the first image of an AMD EPYC Genoa processor, confirming what this new CPU generation will look like. It will be incredibly large and house up to 12 CPU DIEs in total, which means up to 96 cores and 192 threads.
The EPYC Genoa processors will be based on Zen 4 and will mark the debut of the new SP5 socket, also known as LGA-6096. Accommodating these 6096 pins naturally comes with a large footprint, and as we can see, the CPU practically takes up the size of a palm or even more.
Other features of this new platform include support for 12 DDR5-5200 memory channels, 128 PCI-E 5.0 lanes in the single-CPU configuration or 160 in the dual-CPU configuration, and TDPs of up to 400 W per processor, with a total of 800 W of cooling required for the processors on dual-CPU platforms alone.
It will be interesting to see what heatsinks are used for these CPUs, as the contact area is simply enormous. It won’t be easy to efficiently dissipate heat from such a large area, so the design of these heatsinks will be more than a little eye-catching. Considering the fact that these processors won’t hit the market until late 2022, there’s still a long way to go before we know more details about them. So, we will have to wait there a bit to see how much they will perform and what cooling solutions will be used.