AMD has won itself another huge customer with its second-generation lineup of EPYC 7002-series processors.
In a blog post published today, Cloudflare announced that it had switched entirely to AMD hardware for “Gen X” – its latest generation of servers. The content delivery services provider had previously used Intel CPU-based servers, but it’s making the switch to 48-core EPYC 7642 chips to optimize costs and avoid vulnerabilities such as Spectre and Meltdown.
“Notably, Intel is not inside. We are not using their hardware for any major server components such as the CPU, board, memory, storage, network interface card (or any type of accelerator),” Cloudflare shared. “This time, AMD is inside.”
In terms of performance, the EPYC 7642-equipped Gen X server “processes as much as 36 percent more requests while costing substantially less” than its previous Gen 9 server, said Cloudflare. That server utilized dual 24-core Intel Xeon Platinum 6162 processors, but a single AMD EPYC 7642 chip can evidently beat that setup.
Cloudflare also noted the difference in power demands. The AMD EPYC 7642 features a 225 W TDP, while the dual Intel Xeon Platinum 6162 setup totals 300 W TDP (150 W TDP per processor).
“Additionally, it enables a ~50% decrease in L3 cache miss rate and up to 50% decrease in NGINX p99 latency, powered by a CPU rated at 25% lower TDP (thermal design power) per core,” the company explained.