To simplify such a vast array of CPUs, AMD has divided its CPUs into generations - the latest being 5th gen designated as 9005, previous 4th gen as 9004 and so on. There are also number families within generations for specialised telco and SMB-optimised CPUs, such as 8004 and 4005.
AMD EPYC CPUs can be grouped by generation and workload focus, giving a quick indication of relative performance, density and price point.
Based on the Zen 5 and Zen 5c architectures, these CPUs offer cutting-edge performance for every workload.
Based on the Zen 4 and Zen 4c architectures, these CPUs offer cost-effective solutions for every workload.
Based on the Zen 3 and Zen 2 architectures, these CPUs offer solid performance at great price points.
Architecture: Zen 5 / Zen 5c
Socket: AMD SP5
Previous Generation: AMD EPYC 9004
EPYC 9005 is AMD's latest and highest performance range of server processors, and shares the same SP5 platform as EPYC 9004. Leadership memory bandwidth and capacity is provided by support for 12-channels of 18TB of DDR5 memory. In addition, I/O has been upgraded up to 160 lanes of PCIe 5.0. Finally, switching to a new 3nm manufacturing process enables the core count to be increased from 128 to an unparalleled 192 cores.
There are three EPYC 9005 families based on the Zen 5 architecture for single socket, dual socket and high frequency workloads with up to 128 cores. There is also a special range of EPYC 9005 based on the Zen 5c architecture for cloud workloads with up to 192 cores. The difference comes down to how the cores are optimised, with Zen 5 cores focused on clock speed and cache size while Zen 5c cores provide higher density. Whichever model you choose, all EPYC 9005 include AMD Infinity Guard cybersecurity features built into the hardware.
Architecture: Zen 4 / Zen 4c
Socket: AMD SP5
Previous Generation: AMD EPYC 7003
EPYC 9004 is AMD's foundation of a whole new SP5 platform that introduces lots of new features. Leadership memory bandwidth and capacity is provided by support for 12-channels of 12TB of DDR5 memory. In addition the I/O has been upgraded to 128 lanes of PCIe 5.0, providing double the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0. Finally, switching to a new 5nm manufacturing process enables the core count to be increased from 64 to an unparalleled 128 cores.
There are three EPYC 9004 families based on the Zen 4 architecture for single socket, dual socket and high frequency workloads with up to 96 cores. There is also a special EPYC 9004X range based on Zen 4 with a massive 1,152MB 3D V-Cache for HPC workloads. Finally, there is the special range of EPYC 9704 based on the Zen 4c architecture for cloud workloads with up to 128 cores. The difference comes down to how the cores are optimised, with Zen 4 cores focused on clock speed and cache size while Zen 4c cores provide higher density. Whichever model you choose, all EPYC 9004 include AMD Infinity Guard cybersecurity features built into the hardware.
Architecture: Zen 4c
Socket: AMD SP6
Previous Generation: AMD EPYC 7003
EPYC 8004 is AMD's latest range of server processors aimed at manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and telco, and is the foundation of a whole new SP6 platform that introduces high-density attributes. EPYC 8004-series processors are based on the Zen 4c architecture. These have the same overall capabilities as standard Zen 4 cores used in the EPYC 9004-series CPUs but have a lower power, higher-density design, providing up to 64 cores per socket designed for compact, single-socket servers, configured for six DDR5 memory channels and 96 lanes of PCIe 5.0 I/O. This makes EPYC 8004 CPUs ideally suited for power-sensitive deployments, whilst still retaining the Infinity Guard cybersecurity features built into the hardware.
Architecture: Zen 5
Socket: AMD AM5
Previous Generation: AMD EPYC 4004
EPYC 4005 is AMD's latest range of entry-level server processors, and is based on the tried and tested AM5 platform. These single-socket CPUs are ideal for small and medium businesses, departmental and branch office servers and hosted IT service providers. EPYC 4005 processors have up to 16 cores and 32 threads, support up to 192GB of DDR5 ECC memory and have 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes for add-in cards and NVMe SSDs.
Architecture: Zen 4
Socket: AMD AM5
Previous Generation: N/A
EPYC 4004 is AMD's range of entry-level server processors, and is based on the tried and tested AM5 platform. These single-socket CPUs are ideal for small and medium businesses, departmental and branch office servers and hosted IT service providers. EPYC 4004 processors have up to 16 cores and 32 threads, support up to 192GB of DDR5 ECC memory and have 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes for add-in cards and NVMe SSDs.
Architecture: Zen 3
Socket: AMD SP3
Previous Generation: AMD EPYC 7002
EPYC 7003 processors are a range of single or dual-socket CPUs, all models featuring 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes - from the 8-core base model right up to the flagship 64-core model. However, it is worth pointing out that in dual-socket configurations half of the PCIe lanes are disabled and the resources inside the CPU used for inter-CPU communication, so the maximum number of usable lanes in a dual-socket EPYC system is 128. EPYC 7003 processors have up to 64 cores and 128 threads, support up to 4TB of DDR4 ECC Registered memory and have 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes for add-in cards and NVMe SSDs. There are various EPYC 7003 families detailed below - for single-socket, dual-socket and compute intensive servers - the latter featuring a massive 768MB 3D V-Cache, whilst all versions include AMD Infinity Guard cybersecurity features built into the hardware.
Architecture: Zen 2
Socket: AMD SP3
Previous Generation: AMD EPYC 7001
The EPYC 7002 processors are a range of single or dual-socket CPUs, all models featuring 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes - from the 8-core base model right up to the flagship 64-core model. However, in dual-socket configurations half of the PCIe lanes are disabled and the resources inside the CPU are used for inter-CPU communication, so the maximum number of usable lanes in a dual-socket EPYC system is 128. EPYC 7002 processors have up to 64 cores and 128 threads, support up to 4TB of DDR4 ECC Registered memory and have 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes for add-in cards and NVMe SSDs. A dual-socket AMD EPYC workstation or server is ideal for compute intensive tasks such as high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications thanks to their huge memory bandwidth, memory capacity and outstanding I/O.
AMD Secure Boot extends the AMD silicon root of trust to help protect the system BIOS, helping the system establish an unbroken chain of trust from the BIOS to the OS Bootloader using UEFI, or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. This feature helps defend against remote attackers seeking to embed malware into firmware. In virtualised environments, it can also be used when cryptographically verifying the software stack loaded on a cloud server. This silicon-level security is further enhanced by additional layers provided by the operating system and hypervisor.
Secure processor and Secure Boot functions are backed-up by Transparent Secure Memory Encryption (TSME) - by means of a 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, engine integrated into each of the memory controllers found in AMD EPYC processors. This helps protect against attacks on the integrity of main memory - such as cold-boot attacks - because it encrypts the data without modifications to application software. This high-performance encryption integrated into the memory channels also helps increase performance.
AMD Shadow Stack is a hardware-based security feature, introduced in the Zen 4 architecture, that prevents control-flow hijacking attacks, such as return oriented programming (ROP), by maintaining a secondary, isolated copy of the return address stack in memory. It ensures integrity by comparing the main stack to the shadow stack on every return instruction, triggering a fault if they differ. It has a low performance overhead while providing strong protection against malware that attempts to exploit return addresses and supports Microsoft hardware-enforced stack protection.
For virtualised or containerised environments, Secure Encrypted Virtualisation (SEV) helps safeguard privacy and integrity by encrypting each virtual machine or container with one of up to 509 unique encryption keys. This 128-bit AES encryption aids in protecting confidentiality of your data even if a malicious virtual machine finds a way into your virtual machine's memory, or a compromised hypervisor reaches into a guest virtual machine.
Encrypted State (ES) prevents the hypervisor from seeing data actively being used by a virtual machine, helping to protect the contents of the registers even when the virtual machine is offline. This feature requires guest operating system and hypervisor support, such as VMware vSphere or Linux KVM.
Secure Nested Paging (SNP) adds strong memory integrity protection capabilities to help prevent malicious hypervisor-based attacks, such as data replay and memory re-mapping, to create an isolated execution environment. It achieves this through attestation, providing proof that a particular virtual machine has write access to the memory - an important protection feature in virtual environments where multiple guests have access to the shared system memory.
Trusted I/O (TIO) extends a guest's Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to include trusted devices, such as NICs, GPUs and accelerators. The guest VM determines which PCIe devices it trusts via attestation, and allows trusted PCIe devices to read and write directly to encrypted guest private memory, which is otherwise restricted. By eliminating the intermediate bounce buffering of device traffic within the guest, it boosts I/O performance for confidential VMs.
The below table illustrates which of the above AMD Infinity Guard security features are featured in each EPYC CPU generation.
| Feature | EPYC 9005-Series | EPYC 9004 / 8004-Series | EPYC 4004 / 4005-Series | EPYC 7003-Series | EPYC 7002-Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secure Boot | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Transparent Secure Memory Encryption | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Shadow Stack | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Secure Encrypted Virtualisation | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Encrypted State | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Secure Nested Paging | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✖ |
| Trusted I/O | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
Still not sure which AMD EPYC server processor is right for you? This table shows the relative performance and features of the main ranges of EPYC processor.
| EPYC 9005 | EPYC 9005 | EPYC 9005P | EPYC 9005F | EPYC 9704 | EPYC 9004 | EPYC 9004P | EPYC 9004X | EPYC 9004F | EPYC 8004 | EPYC 4005 | EPYC 4004 | EPYC 7003 | EPYC 7003P | EPYC 7003X | EPYC 7002 | EPYC 7002P | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARCHITECTURE | Zen 5c | Zen 5 | Zen 5 | Zen 5 | Zen 4c | Zen 4 | Zen 4 | Zen 4 | Zen 4 | Zen 4c | Zen 5 | Zen 4 | Zen 3 | Zen 3 | Zen 3 | Zen 2 | Zen 2 |
| SMP SUPPORT | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✔ | ✖ | ✔ | ✔ | ✖ |
| SOCKET | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP5 | SP6 | AM5 | AM5 | SP3 | SP3 | SP3 | SP3 | SP3 |
| MAX CORES / THREADS | 192/384 | 128/256 | 96/192 | 64/128 | 128/256 | 96/192 | 96/192 | 96/192 | 48/96 | 64/128 | 16/32 | 16/32 | 64/128 | 64/128 | 64/128 | 64/128 | 64/128 |
| MAX BASE FREQUENCY | 2.2GHz | 3.6GHz | 3.5GHz | 4.1GHz | 2.2GHz | 2.2GHz | 3.2GHz | 3.5GHz | 3.8GHz | 2.6GHz | 4.3GHz | 4.5GHz | 3.7GHz | 3.0GHz | 3.0GHz | 3.2GHz | 3.1GHz |
| MAX BOOST FREQUENCY | 3.7GHz | 4.4GHz | 4.4GHz | 5.0GHz | 3.1GHz | 3.1GHz | 3.8GHz | 4.2GHz | 4.3GHz | 3.1GHz | 5.7GHz | 5.7GHz | 4.1GHz | 3.7GHz | 3.8GHz | 3.4GHz | 3.3GHz |
| MAX L3 CACHE | 384MB | 512MB | 256MB | 512MB | 256MB | 256MB | 384MB | 1152MB | 256MB | 128MB | 128MB | 128MB | 256MB | 256MB | 768MB | 256MB | 256MB |
| MAX MEMORY | 18TB | 18TB | 18TB | 18TB | 12TB | 12TB | 12TB | 12TB | 12TB | 6TB | 192GB | 192GB | 8TB | 8TB | 8TB | 4TB | 4TB |
| MAX MEMORY CHANNELS | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| MEMORY TYPE | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 Reg | ECC DDR5 | ECC DDR5 | ECC DDR4 Reg | ECC DDR4 Reg | ECC DDR4 Reg | ECC DDR4 Reg | ECC DDR4 Reg |
| MAX MEMORY SPEED | 6,000MHz | 6,000MHz | 6,000MHz | 6,000MHz | 4800MHz | 4800MHz | 4800MHz | 4800MHz | 4800MHz | 4800MHz | 5,600MHz | 5200MHz | 3200MHz | 3200MHz | 3200MHz | 3200MHz | 3200MHz |
| MAX MEMORY SUPPORTED | 18TB | 18TB | 18TB | 18TB | 12TB | 12TB | 12TB | 12TB | 12TB | 6TB | 192GB | 192GB | 8TB | 8TB | 8TB | 4TB | 4TB |
| PCIe VERSION | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| MAX PCIe LANES | 160 | 160 | 128 | 160 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 96 | 28 | 28 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| MAX TDP | 500W | 400W | 400W | 400W | 360W | 360W | 360W | 400W | 360W | 200W | 170W | 170W | 280W | 240W | 280W | 225W | 200W |
Note: SMP = Symmetrical Multi Processing, TDP = Thermal Design Power, ECC = Error Correction Code.
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Here are some common questions and answers to help you choose the right AMD EPYC server processor.
AMD EPYC processors are CPUs designed for server workloads such as HPC, AI, virtualisation plus file and print services. AMD EPYC processors have more cores and cache and enhanced reliability versus AMD Ryzen processors, plus integrated security features.
AMD EPYC processors are CPUs designed for server workloads such as HPC, AI, virtualisation plus file and print services. AMD EPYC processors have more cores and cache and enhanced reliability versus AMD Ryzen processors, plus integrated security features.
AMD EPYC processors are CPUs designed for server workloads such as HPC, AI, virtualisation plus file and print services. AMD EPYC processors have more cores and cache and enhanced reliability versus AMD Ryzen processors, plus integrated security features.
AMD EPYC processors are optimised for server workloads, typically having lots of cores but relatively low clock speeds. In contrast, AMD Ryzen processors are better for gaming, as although they have fewer cores, they have much higher clock speeds.
AMD EPYC processors can be used for gaming, but are optimised for server workloads, typically having lots of cores but relatively low clock speeds. In contrast, AMD Ryzen processors are better for gaming, as although they have fewer cores, they have much higher clock speeds.
AMD Zen is a family of high-performance CPU microarchitectures. It has evolved through several generations: Zen (2017), Zen 2 (2019), Zen 3 (2020), Zen 4 (2022), and Zen 5 (2024), with each offering significant speed increases and shrinking manufacturing nodes.
Zen 5 and Zen 5c share the same architecture and instructions per clock (IPC), but Zen 5c is a denser core, approximately 25% smaller, designed for higher density and efficiency. Zen 5 targets maximum performance with higher clock speeds, while Zen 5c uses lower power and less L3 cache to pack more cores into server chips, offering better multi-threaded density.
AMD Infinity Guard is a comprehensive suite of hardware-level security features built into AMD EPYC processors to protect data-in-use, reduce attack surfaces, and enable secure virtualised environments. For details of its features see the AMD EPYC CPU Security section of this guide.
The first AMD EPYC processor was introduced in 2017. Since then AMD has launched multiple generations of faster, more powerful EPYC CPUs.
SMP (Symmetrical Multi Processing) is when a server has more than one physical CPU, typically two, but up to as many as eight CPUs. Each CPU in the server has to be the same make and model, with software operating across all CPUs equally.
ECC (Error Correction Code) memory allows the system to recreate the correct data in real time in case of an error, using a form of parity, which is a method of using a single bit of data to detect errors in larger groups of data. ECC memory looks different to non-ECC memory as it has an extra chip that performs the ECC calculations.
TDP (Thermal Design Power) is a measure of how much electrical power a CPU consumes at maximum load. A higher TDP usually indicates higher performance and means the CPU will require a more capable cooling system.