AMD EPYC 7281

The AMD EPYC 7281 is a server/workstation processor with 16 cores, launched in June 2017. It is part of the EPYC lineup, using the Zen (Naples) architecture with Socket SP3. Thanks to AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) the core-count is effectively doubled, to 32 threads. To further increase overall system performance, up to two EPYC 7281 CPUs can link up in a multi-processor (SMP) configuration. EPYC 7281 has 32MB of L3 cache and operates at 2.1 GHz by default, but can boost up to 2.7 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is building the EPYC 7281 on a 14 nm production process using 4,800 million transistors. The silicon die of the chip is not fabricated at AMD, but at the foundry of GlobalFoundries. You may freely adjust the unlocked multiplier on EPYC 7281, which simplifies overclocking greatly, as you can easily dial in any overclocking frequency. With a TDP of 170 W, the EPYC 7281 is extremely power hungry, which means you need top-notch cooling. AMD's processor supports DDR4 memory with an eight-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 2666 MHz, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. ECC memory is supported, too, which is an important capability for mission-critical systems, to avoid data corruption. For communication with other components in the system, EPYC 7281 uses a PCI-Express Gen 3 connection. This processor lacks integrated graphics, you might need a graphics card. Hardware virtualization is available on the EPYC 7281, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Additionally, IOMMU virtualization (PCI passthrough) is supported, so that guest virtual machines may directly use host hardware. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) will run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, AMD is including the newer AVX2 standard, too, but not AVX-512.