News Cloudflare switches to EPYC 9684X Genoa-X CPUs with 3D V-Cache — 145% faster than previous-gen Milan servers

[Admin]

Cloud provider Cloudflare switches to AMD's 3D-VCache powered EPYC 9684X server CPU for its 12th-gen servers, offering substantial performance improvements.

Cloudflare switches to EPYC 9684X Genoa-X CPUs with 3D V-Cache — 145% faster than previous-gen Milan servers : Read more

 

[Udyr]

The system features 384GB of DDR5 4800MHz DDR5 memory operating in a 12-channel memory configuration

The system features 384GB of DDR5 4800MHz memory, operating in a 12-channel configuration.

and a 800W titanium grade PSU.

and an 800W titanium grade PSU.

 

[DS426]

Wow, is it really worth CloudFlare switching out gen-on-gen servers? AMD will be announcing Zen 5-based 'Turin' EPYC before long.

Nah. I think they're just pointing out that these will be their new server CPU's going forward, now with a known quantity on gains for comparison.

3D V-Cache does use more energy but less than additional trips to and from DDR5, which this case illustrates when that cache can get heavily utilized.

 

[Urzu1000]

Wow, is it really worth CloudFlare switching out gen-on-gen servers? AMD will be announcing Zen 5-based 'Turin' EPYC before long.

Nah. I think they're just pointing out that these will be their new server CPU's going forward, now with a known quantity on gains for comparison.

3D V-Cache does use more energy but less than additional trips to and from DDR5, which this case illustrates when that cache can get heavily utilized.

You can see their value from the upgrade by the amount of RAM they're installing on these. 384GB of RAM is not a lot for servers of this size - something with a top end Genoa X CPU would typically ship with terrabytes of RAM.

This indicates that their workloads are very CPU intensive, and that they would likely benefit considerably from the enhanced performance and cache density.

Being an infrastructure company, their ongoing running costs are most likely astronomical and getting 145% more performance for similar power envelope means that they can cut their operating costs in half by replacing all their current servers with half of that number. On the flipside, it may also double their capacity for the same operating cost if they keep the same number, allowing them to generate more revenue for the same operating cost.

That's a huge incentive for them to quickly but these and liquidate their old servers by selling them, or repurposing them elsewhere within the company.

 

[williamcll]

Wondering who they are going to sell the old servers too?

 

[Kondamin]

i doubt they will replace the old ones before they are broken or a write off.
Players like these buy thousands of servers yearly just swapping recent machines out because of a slight performance improvement isn’t worth the man hours.

 

[Vanderlindemedia]

i doubt they will replace the old ones before they are broken or a write off.
Players like these buy thousands of servers yearly just swapping recent machines out because of a slight performance improvement isn’t worth the man hours.

If the swap gains 145% then yes you need less overall for the same performance, less power and thus more efficient. I swapped out a bunch of XEON's in favor of Epyc. I could take down 3 servers with that alone.

Wondering who they are going to sell the old servers too?

they have their channels. High end hardware still sells. Cloudflare (i use it) is worth the money if you need it for web.

 

[Kondamin]

If the swap gains 145% then yes you need less overall for the same performance, less power and thus more efficient. I swapped out a bunch of XEON's in favor of Epyc. I could take down 3 servers with that alone.



they have their channels. High end hardware still sells. Cloudflare (i use it) is worth the money if you need it for web.

its very likely they have a bunch of older servers running that require replacement before they start swapping machines that aren't 2 years old.
They have 330 data centres world wide, they need tens of thousands of these gen 12 servers, servers that need to be built by someone which takes time.

It is an interesting question.

 

[Vanderlindemedia]

Im sure the stuff is streamlined as much as possible. CF has been around for a long time and is expert at DDOS and much more other security based features.

its a win for AMD as well knowing their whole park of DC's is swapped out with EPYC's.