AMD’s server Zen CPU family gets new member

A long time ago AMD announced that its Zen processors would power servers as well with a chip called Naples being the first server Zen chip. Naples would pack 32 Zen cores. Now a new server Zen chip has surfaced – its code name is Snowy Owl. The chip will target people who do not need the power of 32 cores and this is why Snowy Owl will come with “just” 16 cores.

Each of these cores will have support for Hyper-Threading so Snowy Owl will be able to work with up to 32 threads at once. The chip will have 32 MB of L3 cache and two Zeppelin modules with each one of them containing eight Zen cores. The modules will be interconnected via a super fast interface. Each Zen core will have 512 KB of L2 cache and every four cores will have access to 8 MB of L3 cache. So each Zeppelin module will have 8 Zen cores, support for up to 16 threads, 4 MB of L2 cache and 16 MB of L3 cache.

Snowy Owl will also support quad-channeled DDR4 memory and 64 PCI-E 3.0 lanes. The processor will be able to work with up to 16 SATA or NVMe drives and with up to ten 10-Gbit Ethernet connections. The chip will be housed in a BGA package and will have TDP of up to 100W.

Snowy Owl is expected in summer 2017.

Source: Fudzilla.com