The AMD EPYC 9254 is a server/workstation processor with 24 cores, launched in November 2022, at an MSRP of $2299. It is part of the EPYC lineup, using the Zen 4 (Genoa) architecture with Socket SP5. Thanks to AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) the core-count is effectively doubled, to 48 threads. To further increase overall system performance, up to two EPYC 9254 CPUs can work together in a multi-processor (SMP) configuration. EPYC 9254 has 128 MB of L3 cache and operates at 2.9 GHz by default, but can boost up to 4.15 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is making the EPYC 9254 on a 5 nm production node using 26,280 million transistors. The silicon die of the chip is not fabricated at AMD, but at the foundry of TSMC. The multiplier is locked on EPYC 9254, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 200 W, the EPYC 9254 is extremely power hungry, which means you need top-notch cooling. AMD’s processor supports DDR5 memory with a twelve-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 4800 MT/s, 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 9254 uses a PCI-Express Gen 5 connection. This processor lacks integrated graphics, you might need a graphics card.
Hardware virtualization is available on the EPYC 9254, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, AMD has added support for the newer AVX2 and AVX-512 instructions, too.