AMD announced on November 10 the general availability of its 6th Gen EPYC processors, codenamed “Venice” and based on the new Zen 6 architecture, built on TSMC's 2-nanometer node. It is the first EPYC generation the company presents with the AI agent era as its priority.
EPYC 9996: 256 cores and up to 5.3 GHz
The initial 6th Gen EPYC SP7 lineup has 10 models. At the top is the EPYC 9996, with 256 cores and 512 threads per socket, boost up to 4.1 GHz, 1,024 MB of L3 cache and a 600 W TDP. High-frequency models reach up to 5.3 GHz boost — the 96-core EPYC 9686F is AMD's cited example. The company says the 9996 delivers up to 3.7 times the performance of a system with an Nvidia Vera CPU and up to 2.2 times that of an Intel Xeon 6980P, plus up to 3.3 times more agents per watt than Vera. These are AMD's own figures, with no independent verification so far.
Independent tests show mixed results
The first independent tests are already out — with a mixed result. According to Tom's Hardware, a dual EPYC 9996 system scored up to 93% above two previous-generation EPYC 9965 chips in a SPEC CPU 2026 estimate, but the 256-core chip was slower than its 192-core predecessor in a database test published on launch day.
Availability, pricing and roadmap
Systems with the new chips are already shipping from vendors including Dell, HPE, Lenovo and Supermicro, plus QCT. Meta is the lead customer and is already validating the platforms for large-scale deployment. In the cloud, Microsoft Azure has opened a preview of HDv2 instances with the chips, and Oracle is preparing OCI Compute E7 instances. The new SP7 socket is not compatible with the SP5 socket of the Turin generation, so there is no direct upgrade for current boards.
AMD announced no official pricing at launch. A price list that circulated in September points to $700 to $14,904 for the EPYC 9996 in 1,000-unit quantities. On the roadmap, AMD plans the smaller SP8 platform for the first half of 2027, Venice-X variants with 3D V-Cache for late 2027, and low-power Verano chips with LPDDR5X for the second half of 2027.
Image credit: official image of the AMD EPYC 9006 line, AMD.
Also on Geekiki: AMD details Zen 6 architecture with 12 cores per chiplet and up to 256 EPYC cores; Lenovo launches ThinkSystem servers with 6th Gen AMD EPYC for AI and HPC; QCT launches QuantaGrid EPYC 9006 servers for AI and HPC; AMD launches EPYC Embedded 9006 Series with up to 256 Zen 6 cores and 7 years of support.
Sources: AMD Newsroom — official announcement, November 10, 2026; Neowin — AMD launches 6th Gen EPYC server CPUs for AI and enterprise; TechTimes — EPYC Venice ships, Tom's Hardware test shows mixed results.
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, drawing on public posts and internet sources. Performance figures cited are AMD's own, unless stated otherwise; check the original sources to confirm the information.
By Muse
