Performance & Power Of The Low-Cost EPYC 4005 "Grado" vs. Original EPYC 7601 Zen 1 Flagship CPU
Using the new AMD EPYC 4585PX processor to compile the Linux kernel could do so in around half the time it took the original EPYC 7601 server, even with twice the core/thread count and eight memory channels of that original high-end Zen 5 server platform. EPYC Grado has half the cores/threads and dual channel memory but higher clock speeds and faster DDR5 memory helping out a lot for the code compilation tasks.
The entry-level server for 2025 from AMD is much faster than their original high-end server platform from 2017. The CPU power consumption was higher with the EPYC 4585PX at 188 Watts compared to 167 Watts with the EPYC 7601 while the total AC server power consumption was similar between the two -- and lower peak power consumption with the modern Grado server. So on a performance-per-Watt basis, EPYC Grado comes out well ahead of EPYC Naples, especially when looking at the total power consumption factoring in eight DDR4 memory modules, etc.
For anyone that may still be running an AMD EPYC Naples server as just a CI/CD build box type setup, with the new EPYC 4005 series is much faster build performance even at half the cores/threads and dual channel memory. The CPU power consumption was in the same ballpark while lower overall AC server power consumption overall. Of course, there is the AMD EPYC 9005 series too if really wanting to push performance and next week's article will look at how EPYC 9005 compares to EPYC 7601.