EPYC 7281: specs and benchmarks

Summary

AMD started EPYC 7281 sales 29 June 2017 at a recommended price of $650. This is a Naples architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 16 cores and 32 threads, and is based on 14 nm manufacturing technology, with a max turbo frequency of 2700 MHz and an unlocked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is AMD Socket TR4 processor with a TDP of 170 Watt. It supports DDR4 Eight-channel memory.

Primary details

EPYC 7281 processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in the ranking	548
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	4.82
Market segment	Server
Series	AMD EPYC
Power efficiency	7.54	of 100.00 (Core Ultra 7 164U)
Architecture codename	Naples (2017−2018)
Release date	29 June 2017 (7 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$650	of 17,906 (Xeon Platinum 8280L)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Detailed specifications

Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.

Physical cores	16 (Hexadeca-Core)
Threads	32
Base clock speed	2.1 GHz	of 4.7 GHz (Ryzen 9 7900X)
Boost clock speed	2.7 GHz	of 6.2 GHz (Core i9-14900KS)
Multiplier	21	of 42 (Core i7-7700K)
L1 cache	96K (per core)	of 80 KB (EPYC 9965)
L2 cache	512K (per core)	of 2 MB (Xeon 6980P)
L3 cache	32 MB (shared)	of 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X)
Chip lithography	14 nm	of 3 nm (Core Ultra 9 285K)
Die size	192 mm2
Number of transistors	4,800 million	of 135,240 million (EPYC 9684X)
64 bit support	+
Windows 11 compatibility	-
Unlocked multiplier	+

Compatibility

Information on EPYC 7281 compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration	2 (Multiprocessor)	of 8 (Xeon Platinum 8454H)
Socket	TR4
Power consumption (TDP)	170 Watt	of 500 Watt (Xeon 6960P)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by EPYC 7281. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

AES-NI	+
AVX	+

Virtualization technologies

Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.

AMD-V

+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by EPYC 7281's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory types	DDR4 Eight-channel
Maximum memory size	2 TiB	of 6 TiB (EPYC 9654)
Max memory channels	8	of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth	170.671 GB/s	of 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9654)
ECC memory support	+

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version	3.0	of 5.0 (EPYC 9655P)
PCI Express lanes	128

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of EPYC 7281. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.

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Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

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Closest competitors

EPYC 7281's performance relative to its closest rivals among server CPUs.

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