Epyc based supercomputer to use new Rome server chip clocked at 2.35 GHz

Epyc is AMD's first competitive server CPU in years, and the new Rome based Epyc CPUs will have double the cores of Intel's highest end single dies and 33% more cores than Cascade Lake AP. (Source: AMD)

While both Zen 2 and the Zen 2 based Rome processor were officially announced by AMD at its Next Horizon event, little information was given on things like clock speed, IPC improvements, and other performance figures and specifications. At this year's Supercomputing conference, however, we got some details on Rome's clock speeds.

Matthew Connatser, Published 11/14/2018

At last week's Next Horizon event, AMD talked about its new Rome server architecture, which is based on the Zen 2 architecture and features 64 cores fabbed on the 7nm process from TSMC. Rome will be used for AMD's brand new Epyc 2 CPUs, and the usage of the 7nm node allows AMD to either push clock speeds up by 25% at the same power as its previous node or reduce power consumption by 50%. While we have some idea of what Zen 2's IPC is, AMD was very quiet on clock speeds for Rome. However, and perhaps this information was accidentally made public, we finally have some idea as to how the 64 core Rome CPU will clock.

At this year's Supercomputing Conference, the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) gave a presentation on its 2019 "Hawk" supercomputer that is based on Rome. Sporting 10000 Rome CPUs, it would have a total of 640000 cores at a clock speed of 2.35 GHz. That would put Rome about in the league of the current leading Epyc CPUs based on Naples, which have 32 cores and are fabbed on the inferior 14nm process from GlobalFoundries which is based on a process designed for mobile devices borrowed from Samsung.

While not perhaps surprising given that server CPUs run at lower clock speeds for optimal efficiency, it is perhaps a good sign that things have not gone awry for AMD. It's also very good for AMD that they have a deal lined up to sell 10000 of the best CPUs the company can create. Unfortunately, HPCC's presentation did not give a specific date for when this supercomputer would be ready, but all the same it's exciting to see more and more information about Rome trickle in.