According to Phoronix, Microsoft’s Azure HBv5 virtual machines powered by custom AMD EPYC 9V64H processors with HBM3 memory have reached general availability nearly one year after their initial announcement. These VMs feature up to 368 AMD Zen 4 cores clocking up to 4.00GHz and deliver a staggering 6.9TB/s of memory bandwidth across 400-450GB of HBM3 memory. The flagship configuration provides up to 9GB of HBM3 memory per core and runs without SMT enabled. Microsoft provided Phoronix with early access to benchmark these systems against the previous-generation HBv4 VMs powered by AMD EPYC 9V33X Genoa-X processors with 3D V-Cache. Both systems were tested running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with Linux kernel 6.14 and GCC 13.3 compiler for consistent performance comparisons across various HPC workloads.
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The Memory Bandwidth Monster
Here’s the thing about that 6.9TB/s memory bandwidth number – it’s absolutely insane. We’re talking about performance that makes traditional DDR5 memory look like it’s standing still. For memory-intensive HPC applications, this is basically like going from a country road to an eight-lane superhighway. And the fact that Microsoft and AMD co-designed this processor specifically for these workloads shows how serious they are about capturing the high-performance computing market.
But why stick with Zen 4 when Zen 5 has been available for over a year? That’s the question that immediately comes to mind. The answer probably comes down to timing and design complexity. Developing a custom processor with HBM3 integration isn’t something you do overnight, and by the time Microsoft and AMD committed to this path, Zen 4 was the available architecture. Still, you have to wonder what a Zen 5 + HBM3 combination could deliver.
HPC Landscape Shift
What’s really interesting here is how this positions Azure against competitors in the HPC space. We’re seeing a clear trend toward specialized hardware for specific workload types, and Microsoft is betting big that memory bandwidth will be the next battleground. The comparison against HBv4’s 3D V-Cache processors is particularly telling – it’s essentially a showdown between massive cache and massive bandwidth.
Look, for certain applications, that HBM3 advantage is going to be transformative. Think computational fluid dynamics, financial modeling, genomic analysis – basically any workload where memory bandwidth has been the bottleneck. The fact that these VMs are hitting general availability now means researchers and enterprises can finally start leveraging this power for real projects rather than just testing.
What Comes Next?
So where does this leave us? Well, we’re clearly in an era where cloud providers are pushing beyond commodity hardware into custom-designed solutions. Microsoft’s partnership with AMD on this processor isn’t just a one-off – it’s a sign of things to come. I’d expect to see more specialized instances targeting specific performance characteristics rather than just generic compute power.
The real question is how quickly other cloud providers will respond. AWS has its Graviton processors, Google has its TPUs, and now Microsoft has these HBM3-powered beasts. The HPC arms race is heating up, and honestly, that’s great news for anyone running demanding workloads. Better performance, more options, and potentially lower costs as competition intensifies. Not a bad outcome at all.
