The AMD EPYC 8124PN is a server/workstation processor with 16 cores, launched in September 2023, at an MSRP of $790. It is part of the EPYC lineup, using the Zen 4c (Siena) architecture with Socket SP6. Thanks to AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) the core-count is effectively doubled, to 32 threads. EPYC 8124PN has 64 MB of L3 cache and operates at 2000 MHz by default, but can boost up to 3 GHz, depending on the workload. AMD is making the EPYC 8124PN on a 5 nm production node using 17,750 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 8124PN, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 100 W, the EPYC 8124PN consumes a good deal of power, so decent cooling is needed. AMD’s processor supports DDR5 memory with a six-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 machine, EPYC 8124PN 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 8124PN, 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.