AMD today announced their newest member of their expansive EPYC family: the EPYC Embedded 2005 series. The new AMD EPYC Embedded 2005 Series are intended primarily for networking, storage, and industrial devices while these BGA processors will likely see other interesting thin-server uses as well.

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The AMD EPYC Embedded 2005 series are built on Zen 5 cores from eight to sixteen cores and with TDPs from 45 to 75 Watts. The EPYC Embedded 2005 series are BGA 40x40mm processors and have long-term availability with ten years planned. The EPYC Embedded 2005 series has other common features with the rest of the AMD Zen 5 processors like DDR5 memory support and PCIe Gen 5.

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The EPYC Embedded 2005 series is the soldered CPU successors to the EPYC Embedded 3001 series with the very dated Zen 1 processor cores. The AMD EPYC Embedded 2005 series aims to go up against the Intel Xeon D-2700 and Xeon D-2800 processors as well as similar overlap in the Xeon 6500P-B series.

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By now you are likely very familiar with [4]Zen 5 itself, so the microarchitecture needs no further introduction. The EPYC Embedded 2005 series offers 28 lane PCIe Gen5 connectivity and dual channel DDR5 with ECC memory support.

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Over the old EPYC Embedded 3000 series is far greater performance to no surprise. Over the Intel Xeon 6503P-B, AMD is promoting its higher base and boost frequency advantage.

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The initial AMD EPYC Embedded 2005 line-up includes the EPYC Embedded 2435 at 8 cores / 16 threads at 45 Watt TDP, the EPYC Embedded 2655 at 12 cores / 24 threads at 55 Watt TDP, and the flagship EPYC Embedded 2875 with 16 cores / 32 threads with a 75 Watt TDP. All three models are BGA and have planned availability for ten years. The EPYC Embedded 2875 and EPYC Embedded 2655 models have a 64MB L3 cache while the EPYC Embedded 2435 has a 32MB L3 cache.

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AMD is gearing the EPYC Embedded 2005 series for a range of different networking, storage, and industrial applications. The EPYC Embedded 2005 series is sampling now with production in Q1-2026.

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With no reference platform review samples for independent performance benchmarks or the like to provide any unique insight today, that's the quick and short story for now on the AMD EPYC Embedded 2005 series. It's a much overdue successor to the EPYC Embedded 3001 series and these new BGA processors should see a lot of Linux action given their intended markets. For those looking for a socketed low-core count server processor, an alternative to the EPYC Embedded 2005 series is the [9]EPYC 4005 series that work out extremely well for economical/entry-level/low-power servers also built atop Zen 5.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_1_lrg

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_2_lrg

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_3_lrg

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Zen+5

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_4_lrg

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_5_lrg

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_6_lrg

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-embedded-2005&image=epyc_embedded_2005_7_lrg

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/search/EPYC+4005