AMD EPYC vs. Intel Xeon: Which CPU Would You Choose for a New Dedicated Server Today?

[SenseiSteve]

If you were deploying a new dedicated server today, would you choose AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon, and why?

Beyond benchmark numbers, I'm curious what has influenced your real-world deployments over the past year.

Some things that come to mind:

• Single-threaded vs. multi-threaded performance
• Virtualization (Proxmox, VMware, Hyper-V)
• Power efficiency
• Memory capacity and bandwidth
• PCIe lane availability
• Reliability and long-term stability
• Cost versus overall value

Have your preferences changed over the last couple of hardware generations, or are you still sticking with the same platform?

 

[AlexTechie]

My first choose is always AMD EPYC. It delivers better value, more cores, excellent virtualization performance, and great power efficiency and making it a solid choice for modern dedicated servers.

 

[Mivocloud]

Hey.

This isn't my professional opinion, but my take is as follows: AMD has become better than Intel over the past few years, so if you're building a dedicated server, it's best to go with an AMD processor. Then again, a lot depends on what the server is intended for, but in my view, AMD is the best candidate. However, I might be wrong, and if so, explain to me why Intel is better than AMD.

 

[RackWorks]

Depends on the workload. EPYC wins on density, more cores, more memory channels, more PCIe lanes per socket, so it's the usual pick for VPS/virtualization at scale. Xeon still clocks higher per-core though, which matters for latency-sensitive stuff, and per-core licensed software (Windows Server, SQL) gets cheaper with fewer, faster cores instead of a high core count chip.