According to Phoronix, Microsoft’s Azure HBv5 virtual machines powered by custom AMD EPYC 9V64H processors with HBM3 memory have finally reached general availability after being announced nearly a year ago. These VMs feature up to 368 AMD Zen 4 cores clocking up to 4.00GHz and deliver a massive 6.9TB/s of memory bandwidth across 400-450GB of HBM3 memory. The EPYC 9V64H processors run without SMT and can be configured with up to 9GB of HBM3 memory per core. Phoronix conducted the first independent benchmarks comparing the flagship 368-core HBv5 configuration against the previous HBv4 series, which used AMD EPYC 9V33X Genoa-X processors with 3D V-Cache. Both test environments ran Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with Linux 6.14 kernel and GCC 13.3 compiler for consistent comparison across various HPC workloads.
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Why This Matters
Here‘s the thing about HBM memory – it’s an absolute game-changer for memory-bound workloads. We’re talking about applications where traditional DDR memory just can’t keep the processors fed. Think computational fluid dynamics, weather modeling, financial risk analysis, or massive scientific simulations. These are the kinds of jobs where waiting hours instead of days actually matters. And with 6.9TB/s of bandwidth? That’s basically eliminating memory bottlenecks entirely for most practical purposes.
But here’s what’s really interesting – Microsoft went with Zen 4 instead of waiting for Zen 5. I mean, Zen 5 has been available for over a year already, and it offers full 512-bit AVX-512 rather than Zen 4’s “double pumped” approach. So why stick with the older architecture? Probably because the HBM integration was already deep in development, and delaying for Zen 5 would have pushed this release back even further. Sometimes you’ve got to ship what’s ready rather than wait for perfect.
Performance Reality
The comparison against HBv4 with Genoa-X processors tells a fascinating story. Genoa-X has that massive 3D V-Cache, which is incredible for cache-sensitive workloads. But HBM3? That’s playing in a completely different league for memory bandwidth. We’re talking about moving from DDR5’s bandwidth measured in hundreds of GB/s to HBM3’s thousands of GB/s. It’s not even close.
For enterprises running memory-intensive HPC applications, this could mean cutting computation times dramatically. Imagine running complex simulations that used to take days now completing in hours. Or being able to tackle problems that were previously too memory-intensive to even attempt. That’s the kind of step-change we’re looking at here.
Market Implications
Microsoft’s timing here is… interesting. They’re launching a Zen 4-based solution when everyone’s eyes are on Zen 5. But honestly? For the target market, this doesn’t matter as much as you’d think. The companies needing this level of memory bandwidth aren’t chasing the latest CPU architecture – they’re chasing solutions to specific computational problems. And if HBM3 solves those problems better than anything else available, that’s what they’ll use.
This also represents another win for AMD in the cloud datacenter space. Custom silicon partnerships like this show that cloud providers see real value in working closely with AMD on specialized solutions. It’s not just about throwing commodity hardware at problems anymore – it’s about co-designing solutions for specific workload types. And honestly, that’s where the real innovation in cloud computing is happening these days.
The bigger question is whether we’ll see similar HBM-equipped instances from other cloud providers soon. AWS and Google aren’t exactly known for sitting on the sidelines when it comes to high-performance computing. But for now, Microsoft has the field to themselves with this particular configuration. And for memory-bound HPC workloads, that could be a compelling reason to choose Azure over alternatives.
