With the [1]AMD EPYC 9005 "Turin" series [2]launch earlier this month there was launch-day benchmark review results for the [3]EPYC 9575F, EPYC 9755, and EPYC 9965 processors in looking at that frequency optimized SKU, the new flagship 128-core Turin "classic" core model, and the new flagship 192-core Turin "dense" core SKU, respectively. That's interesting for looking at the new 5th Gen AMD EPYC top-end wares but in comparing to 4th Gen EPYC also means higher core counts at the top-end. In being curious about the core-for-core advantages of 5th Gen EPYC, I managed to get my hands on the AMD EPYC 9655 processors for seeing how that model compares to the prior AMD EPYC 9654 "Genoa" flagship model. Here's a look today at how the AMD EPYC 9655 1P/2P 96-core processor compares to the prior EPYC 9654 flagship.

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The EPYC 9655 is interesting for being the 5th Gen EPYC "Turin" equivalent of the former EPYC 9654 "Genoa" flagship model at 96 cores / 192 threads. So while it's also interesting looking at the new 128-core Turin classic and 192-core Turin dense configurations, for seeing the generational uplift from 4th Gen to 5th Gen AMD EPYC at the same core count, the EPYC 9655 is an interesting candidate.

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While two years old the EPYC 9654 has withstood the marketplace well and is still a competitive CPU compared to the competition in most workloads. This 96-core / 192-thread Zen 4 processor has a 2.4GHz base clock. 3.7GHz max boost clock. 384MB L3 cache, 360 Watt default TDP, DDR5-4800 support, and had an initial 1KU list price of $11,805 USD.

Now with the EPYC 9655 that launched earlier this month for 96-cores / 128-threads of Zen 5 Turin classic cores is a 2.6GHz base clock, 4.5GHz max boost clock, the same 384MB L3 cache, 400 Watt default TDP, DDR5-6000 / DDR5-6400 memory support, and an initial 1KU list price of $11,852 USD. Significantly higher clock speeds, much faster DDR5 memory support, and all the strengths of the Zen 5 microarchitecture while having just a 40 Watt higher TDP. Another important Zen 4 to Zen 5 difference particularly for server workloads is the EPYC 9005 line-up having [6]a full 512-bit data-path for AVX-512 compared to the double pumped approach used by Zen 4.

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With continuing to use the Socket SP5, the EPYC 9655 is drop-in compatible with existing Genoa motherboards after a BIOS update. Many of the existing Socket SP5 motherboards designed for Bergamo/Genoa have a 400 Watt TDP limit, so the EPYC 9655 ends up being an important part here for fitting within the TDP constraints of those existing motherboards unlike the 500 Watt EPYC 9755/9965 CPUs. Or similarly for those that may have just the rack power/cooling capacity for handling 400 Watt CPUs, the EPYC 9655 is an interesting fit.

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This article is mainly focused on the EPYC 9654 vs. EPYC 9655 generational difference given the same core counts. But I also included the prior EPYC 9755 review data for that 128-core Turin classic flagship model too for reference of top-end 4th Gen to top-end 5th Gen of classic cores (ignoring the dense cores for this article). Plus for additional reference are my Intel Xeon 6980P results both DDR5-6400 and MRDIMM-8800. The EPYC 9654 CPUs were using DDR5-4800 for their top-end memory and the EPYC 9655/9755 CPUs with DDR5-6000 as supported. These CPUs were tested in both single and dual socket configurations.

These benchmarks were carried out on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with the Linux 6.10 kernel. Let's dive in to see how the EPYC 9655 processor is looking for Linux servers and HPC.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/EPYC+9005

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9005

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9965-9755-benchmarks

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-9655&image=amd_epyc_9655_1_lrg

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-9655&image=amd_epyc_9655_2_lrg

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-epyc-9755-avx512

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-9655&image=amd_epyc_9655_3_lrg

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=amd-epyc-9655&image=amd_epyc_9655_4_lrg