Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. today announced the launch of the latest generation of its popular, general-purpose EPYC central processing units.

The EPYC 4005 Series chips come in three form factors, with eight-core, 12-core and 16-core options available. They’re powerful enough to run various artificial intelligence applications at the edge, the company said.

Unlike the consumer-focused AMD Ryzen CPUs, which are aimed at personal computers and laptops, the EPYC CPUs are designed for data center servers and higher-performance workstations. AMD offers a range of EPYC processors to meet the requirements of different customers, with the EPYC 4000 Series being the most affordable, entry-level offering. They’re designed for a range of common computing applications and workloads, balancing performance with efficiency. They sit below the EPYC 7000, 8000 and 9000-Series CPUs that offer more computing power at a higher cost.

Using the same proven and widely deployed AM5 socket found in the previous generation EPYC 4004 Series, the EPYC 4005 chips will be fitted into everything from cloud-based servers to blades and personal computers, the company said.

Customers will be able to choose from the eight-core EPYC 4364P, the 12-core EPYC 4464P and the 16-core EPYC 4565P. That’s similar to the EPYC 4004 Series, which was also sold in three form factors.

As always, AMD is promising some substantial performance gains, with the EPYC 4565P 16-core CPU providing a 1.55-times increase in processing power over the earlier 16-core version of the EPYC 4004 chip. Notably, it also claims an even bigger, 1.83-times performance increase over Intel Corp.’s equivalent CPU, the Intel Xeon 6300P.

AMD said the EPYC 4005 Series CPUs are suitable for a variety of general-purpose cloud workloads, including applications such as software development, offering “accelerated compiling times” compared to its predecessor. They also support high-performance content creation tasks such as 4K video editing, and can be used in a range of edge AI applications, such as computer vision.

Derek Dicker, corporate vice president of AMD’s Enterprise and HPC Business Group, said the new chips are meant to address some of the common constraints of growing businesses, namely low budgets, complexity and deployment times. “With the latest AMD EPYC 4005 Series CPUs, we are delivering the right balance of performance, simplicity and affordability, giving our customers and system partners the ability to deploy enterprise-class solutions that solve everyday business challenges,” he said.

AMD said the new chips are available now in a range of enterprise-grade servers from partners including Altos Inc., Giga-Byte Technology Co., Ltd., Lenovo Group Ltd., MiTAC Holdings Corp., Micro-Star International Co. Ltd., Newegg Commerce Inc., OVH Groupe SA, Super Micro Computer Inc. and Vultr.

Vultr Chief Executive J.J. Kardwell said customers can access the latest EPYC CPUs via multiple new cloud compute and bare metal instances on his company’s cloud infrastructure platform. “The AMD EPYC 4005 Series provides straightforward deployment, scalability, high clock speed, energy efficiency and best-in-class performance,” he said.

Images: AMD