Amazon Graviton4 server CPU shown beating AMD and Intel processors in multiple benchmarks

[zohaibahd]

In context: Amazon's AWS Graviton line of Arm-based server CPUs is designed by subsidiary Annapurna Labs. It introduced the processors in 2018 for the Elastic Compute Cloud. These custom silicon chips, featuring 64-bit Neoverse cores, power AWS's A1 instances tailored for Arm workloads like web services, caching, and microservices.

Amazon Web Services has landed a haymaker with its latest Graviton4 processor. They're exclusive to AWS's cloud servers, but the folks at Phoronix have somehow managed to get their hands on a unit to give us a peek at its performance potential.

Graviton4 packs 96 Arm Neoverse V2 cores, each with 2MB of L2 cache. The chip also rocks 12 channels of DDR5-5600 RAM, giving it stupid amounts of memory bandwidth to flex those cores. Positioning this offering for R8g instances, AWS promises up to triple the vCPUs and RAM compared to the previous R7g instances based on Graviton3. The company also claims 30 percent zippier web apps, 40 percent faster databases, and at least 40 percent better Java software performance.

However, the real story lies in those benchmarks, which the publication ran on Ubuntu 24.04. In heavily parallelized HPC workloads like miniFE (finite element modeling) and Xcompact3d (complex fluid dynamics), Graviton4 demolished not just its predecessors but even AMD's EPYC 'Genoa' chips.

One particularly impressive showing was in the ACES DGEMM HPC benchmark, where the 96-core Graviton4 metal instance scored a staggering 71,131 points, smoking the second-place 96-core AMD EPYC 9684X at 53,167 points.

In code compilation, the Graviton4 significantly outpaced the Ampere Altra Max 128-core flagship but lagged behind the varying core count Xeon and EPYC processors. However, it beat the EPYC 9754 in the Timed LLVM Compilation test.

The surprises kept coming with workloads not necessarily associated with Arm chips. Graviton4 demolished the competition in 7-Zip compression. Cryptography is another strong suit, with the Graviton4 nearly tripling its predecessor's performance in algorithms like ChaCha20.

After testing over 30 different workloads, Phoronix concluded that the Graviton4 is hands down the fastest Arm server processor to date. It's giving current Intel and AMD chips a considerable run for their money across various tasks.

Of course, this silicon arms race will only heat up further with new chips like Intel's Granite Rapids and AMD's Turin on the horizon. For now, AWS has a performance monster on its hands with Graviton4.

Image credit: Phoronix

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Amazon Graviton4 server CPU shown beating AMD and Intel processors in multiple benchmarks

 

[Lionvibez]

Interesting title considering it loses most of the benchmarks and only comes out on top in a few.

 

[HardReset]

Interesting title considering it loses most of the benchmarks and only comes out on top in a few.

It still beats on multiple benchmarks.

However AMD is releasing Zen5 and it will be much faster than Zen4 so nothing Really exciting here.

 

[yRaz]

It still beats on multiple benchmarks.

However AMD is releasing Zen5 and it will be much faster than Zen4 so nothing Really exciting here.

It's still interesting reading about "outsiders" trying to compete with AMD and Intel. Watching them go back and fourth gets boring after awhile.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Amazon through a company it bought makes a dedicated chip well suited for Amazons own use /
Apple make M4 etc

all kind if nifty but is Apple or Amazon selling?

Plus we get no details/context - is it Apples to Apples
price , real estate on chip, powerdraw etc
Kind of moot as gave the cost of $6/hour , so not sure what AMD or Intels cost per hour in context

Anyway the more competition the better , as servers are the backbone of lots of front end things we use

I imagine it will be a specialist job matching researchers/university , companies to the appropriate server/crunchers and getting a good package
Show me your work flow
Package 1 Amazon 6 weeks $24000
Package 2 Microsoft 4 weeks $32000 blah blah blah ( +2 days code optimization )

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Many of the benchmarks fail to make adequate use of all the available cores, EPYC could look even more impressive if that were the case

 

[daffy duck]

I'd love to see the power consumption in those tests. I'll bet it's a lot more efficient.

 

[toooooot]

Many of the benchmarks fail to make adequate use of all the available cores, EPYC could look even more impressive if that were the case

they optimized it for things they are interested in. I am not even sure they are gonna sell these

 

[Eldrach]

Well - if you take consumer computers as well - we are seeing the first ARM based computers of any note this year, and they’ve turned out surprisingly good for having to emulate most apps. I’m eager to see the arm computers on «native» apps in the future

 

[HardReset]

Well - if you take consumer computers as well - we are seeing the first ARM based computers of any note this year, and they’ve turned out surprisingly good for having to emulate most apps. I’m eager to see the arm computers on «native» apps in the future

ARM laptops with Snapdragon X are not "surprisingly good" but just disappointing. Can barely compete against current laptop chips but both AMD and Intel are bringing new generation chip very soon. Also Intel is finally bringing mobile chip with integrated DDR5 memory. And after that only ARM chip "advantage" has is basically gone. I say "advantage" because memory is not expandable. That "advantage" was only reason why Apple's M-chips were so hyped.

 

[Alfatawi Mendel]

Techspot headline: "Amazon Graviton4 server CPU shown beating AMD and Intel processors in multiple benchmarks"
The geomean benchmarks tell a different story.
Is this what passes for "quality journalism" down under?

 

[noblody]

Techspot headline: "Amazon Graviton4 server CPU shown beating AMD and Intel processors in multiple benchmarks"
The geomean benchmarks tell a different story.
Is this what passes for "quality journalism" down under?

It is true that it beats amd and intel in multiple tests. It loses over the whole benchmark but depending on the usecase the graviton 4 could be a better choice.

 

[user556]

Given how close they are, I think it's a deserved title. Usage pricing becomes the real measure.

 

[yRaz]

ARM laptops with Snapdragon X are not "surprisingly good" but just disappointing. Can barely compete against current laptop chips but both AMD and Intel are bringing new generation chip very soon. Also Intel is finally bringing mobile chip with integrated DDR5 memory. And after that only ARM chip "advantage" has is basically gone. I say "advantage" because memory is not expandable. That "advantage" was only reason why Apple's M-chips were so hyped.

Why is mobile chips with integrated memory a good thing? That's the fastest way to get ewaste there is

 

[HardReset]

Why is mobile chips with integrated memory a good thing? That's the fastest way to get ewaste there is

That's why I said "advantage".

 

[yRaz]

That's why I said "advantage".

Sorry, I'm hung over and can't follow. Pittsburgh Pirates are on a winning streak and it's also the Picklesburgh festival

 

[Burty117]

Intel Xeon 6780E - 144 cores - release date: Q2 2024 - Price: £11k~ (I couldn't find it for sale so going off Intel's ARK)
AMD Epyc 9754 - 128 cores - release date: Q2 2023 - Price: £8.5k

AMD beats Intel in literally all benchmarks, are Intel seriously THAT behind? Bloody Hell, no wonder they're losing market share.

 

[HardReset]

Intel Xeon 6780E - 144 cores - release date: Q2 2024 - Price: £11k~ (I couldn't find it for sale so going off Intel's ARK)
AMD Epyc 9754 - 128 cores - release date: Q2 2023 - Price: £8.5k

AMD beats Intel in literally all benchmarks, are Intel seriously THAT behind? Bloody Hell, no wonder they're losing market share.

Intel has been behind since AMD launched Zen2 (2019).

For that particular comparison, I remind that Xeon 6780E consists of Crap cores only (E-cores found on Rust Lake CPUs).

 

[Endymio]

Techspot headline: "Amazon Graviton4 server CPU shown beating AMD and Intel processors in multiple benchmarks"
The geomean benchmarks tell a different story.
Is this what passes for "quality journalism" down under?

The journalism was fine; the problem was the reader. The headline didn't state "all" benchmarks, or even most of them. And the difference between a server and your home computer is that many are dedicated to one or two specific applications. If a chip excels under that workload, you don't really care how it scores on others.

 

[redgarl]

Amazon is building chips for Amazon for Amazon Businesses...

It will shine in tasks necessary for Amazon, but it will never be a round solution with a strong software support, so it will never be a product with an extended reach.

 

[redgarl]

Techspot headline: "Amazon Graviton4 server CPU shown beating AMD and Intel processors in multiple benchmarks"
The geomean benchmarks tell a different story.
Is this what passes for "quality journalism" down under?

Well, the title is indeed misleading, but it does beat Intel offerings often.

 

[Northy]

Amazon have really outdone themselves here, creating a top tier server processor just for themselves. One doesn't have to be an accountant to see how brilliant this is.