AMD's EPYC 7003 "Milan" Receives Extended Lifecycle: Availability To 2026 With 6 New SKUs
by Ryan Smith on November 7, 2023 9:00 AM EST
AMD has sent word over this morning that the company is extending the product lifecycle for their previous-generation EYPC 7003 “Milan” family of server CPUs. The company will now be offering the Zen 3-based CPUs through at least 2026, and as part of that extension plan, has already launched a further 6 SKUs. With these changes, Milan is effectively being repositioned as a budget server platform for AMD, offering AMD’s past tech at a discount to cost-weary customers.
First launched in early 2021, AMD’s EPYC 7003 “Milan” platform is based on the company’s Zen 3 architecture, offering chips with up to 64 CPU cores, 8 channels of DDR4 memory, and PCIe 4.0 connectivity. The platform has since been superseded by AMD’s numerous Zen 4-based EPYC 9004/8004 server platforms – Genoa, Bergamo, and Siena – but for continuity and support reasons, the Milan platform is still being offered to customers. And now, it seems, it will be for even longer than AMD was first expecting.
As of today, AMD is extending the availability of the Milan platform to 2026. All the while, the company is repositioning the platform as their newest budget offering, pitching it at customers who are on the trailing-edge of server technology and need a proven platform to upgrade to, but for whatever reason aren’t ready to upgrade to the 4th generation EPYC platforms. In practice, AMD is trying to entice Intel Xeon Scalable customers who are looking to replace their aging servers, but aren’t ready or eager to move on to 4th gen Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids).
Competitively, Milan doesn’t offer much of note with regards to performance or features compared to AMD and Intel’s contemporary platforms. But for customers already invested in it and who need the ability to repair or bring online additional matching systems over the next couple of years, it will remain in service.
Meanwhile, the company is also re-launching 6 new Milan SKUs to underscore its position as a budget platform. All of these chips were first released by AMD back in September without much fanfare, but now that AMD is extending Milan’s availability to 2026, they are using the moment to spotlight their existence.
| AMD EPYC 7003 Milan New SKUs | ||||||||||
| AnandTech | Core/ Thread |
Base Freq |
1T Freq |
L3 Cache |
PCIe | Memory | TDP (W) |
cTDP (W) |
Price (1KU) |
|
| 7663P | 56 | 112 | 2000 | 3500 | 256MB | 128 x 4.0 | 8 x DDR4-3200 | 240 | 225-280 | $3,139 |
| 7643P | 48 | 96 | 2300 | 3600 | 256MB | 225 | 225-240 | $2,722 | ||
| 7303 | 16 | 32 | 2400 | 3400 | 64MB | 130 | 120-150 | $604 | ||
| 7303P | 16 | 32 | 2400 | 3400 | 64MB | 130 | 120-150 | $594 | ||
| 7203 | 8 | 16 | 2800 | 3400 | 64MB | 120 | 120-150 | $348 | ||
| 7203P | 8 | 16 | 2800 | 3400 | 64MB | 120 | 120-150 | $338 | ||
The 6 new chips are a bit of an eclectic mix. The top two SKUs – the 56-core 7663P and 48-core 7643P – are 1P-only versions of existing Milan chips at a lower price. Meanwhile the 7303 and 7203 parts are new, with AMD offering ultra-budget server chips with just 16 and 8 cores respectively. The 7203/7203P are true entry-level chips by server standards, with just 8 CPU cores, 64MB of L3 cache, and peak clockspeed well below AMD’s only other 8 core Milan (72F3). However, all of these chips come with the full I/O and memory channels supported by the Milan/SP3 platform, allowing AMD to position them as alternatives to the more limited EPYC 8004 Siena platform.
Source: AMD
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Maksdampf - Tuesday, November 7, 2023 - link
I don't think that Milan is at all uncompetitive compared to Sapphire Rapids. In Compute alone both platforms are still very similar, which has also been noted by many reviewers.The Corecount is comparable and power efficiency is similar or even better on Milan.
Many people don't care about DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 or Intels fancy Accelerators. They want simple aircooled servers with as many Cores as possible and good power efficiency. And that is when you look at SKUs below 300W where Sapphire rapids has a significant corecount and clockspeed deficit. In this range, SR is loosing the MT CPU performance battle vs Milan, not even winning the per thread performance decisively because of clockspeed.
And as for the obviously better Genoa Products, those are not actually faster at the same pricepoint and not much more efficient. At the same TDP and pricepoint one can get more Zen3 Cores than Zen4, which performs just as good in many compute workloads while being cheaper.
Many Datacenters don't need the higher bandwidth of DDR5 and PCIeGen5 that Genoa offers. Also i wouldn't underestimate how many Customer still prefer standard form factors for server motherboards. This is not possible with 12CH DDR5 and such huge sockets, which is why Epyc Siena has been welcomed by so many.
twotwotwo - Tuesday, November 7, 2023 - link
Wonder if this reflects difficulties producing enough Zen 4 chips (e.g. getting enough 5nm wafers from TSMC), or that the larger platform able to handle 12 CCDs makes it hard to offer it and servers based on it cheaply, or overall market conditions tending to favor cheaper chips, or something different or a mix.The change in plans does suggest *something* was different from prior expectations.
Hul8 - Wednesday, November 8, 2023 - link
I don't think Zen 4 EPYC 9004 (Genoa) comes into it since it's in a completely different league in terms of performance and platform cost. As stated in the last sentence of the article, the comparison would be EPYC 8004 (Siena), made with Zen 4c.Maybe cloud operators are gobbling up all of the Zen 4c supply in Bergamo chips, so AMD is unable to deliver Siena in quantities they had planned?
zarajazmin - Wednesday, November 8, 2023 - link
AMD's EPYC 7003 'Milan' processors have received an extended lifecycle, ensuring availability until 2026. This announcement comes with the introduction of six new SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) within the EPYC 7003 series. These SKUs are designed to meet the growing demand for high-performance computing solutions across various industries. This move reflects AMD's commitment to providing long-term support and flexibility to its customers, especially in data center and enterprise environments. Just as AMD extends the lifecycle of its products, services like CV writing in Oman https://cvmakerdubai.ae/cv-writing-oman can provide long-term support for professionals, helping them achieve their career goals with well-crafted resumes that stand the test of time.