DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT | Mon, 11 May 2026 18:00:53 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-71-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $12.00 | $28.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 80 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 2 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | DO-Premium-AMD |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 1,996.25 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 3,992.50 |
| Events per Second | 408.72 | 1,048.70 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.64 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.44 | 0.95 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.57 | 7.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 2.76 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,633,276.41 | 4,138,415.98 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,595.00 | 4,041.42 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.35 | 6.71 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,592,941.48 | 4,558,150.63 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,555.61 | 4,451.32 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.53 | 0.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,584.78 | 1,623.20 |
| Writes per Second | 1,056.52 | 1,082.14 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,385.97 | 3,468.23 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.76 | 25.36 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.51 | 16.91 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.16 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.31 | 8.73 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.63 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,434.32 | 886.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,473.55 | 989.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,489.41 | 1,026.93 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 1,032.01 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,752.00 | 4,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,520.00 | 49,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 1.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.76 | 4.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 2.57 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 2,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 27,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.65 | 1.66 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 3.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.83 | 21.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 5.57 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,306.00 | 1,530.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,060.00 | 15,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.6 | 3.58 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.65 | 6.53 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.54 | 31.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.09 | 10.27 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,148.00 | 3,730.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,480.00 | 37,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 1.11 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.67 | 14.01 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 4.57 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 669,209.00 | 1,259,342.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,692,090.00 | 12,593,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 772.1 | 491.29 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 136,020.00 | 106,801.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,360,200.00 | 1,068,010.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.33 | 1.28 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.13 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,617.00 | 6,211.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,170.00 | 62,110.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.5 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 1.61 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.27 | 8.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 2.35 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,087.00 | 5,787.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,870.00 | 57,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.67 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.73 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.52 | 3.58 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.35 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,586.00 | 3,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,860.00 | 36,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 1.15 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.86 | 2.76 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.13 | 17.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 4.82 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,094.00 | 3,766.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,940.00 | 37,660.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 1.29 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 2.65 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.75 | 17.38 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.65 | 4.41 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,562.00 | 28,987.00 |
| Queries per second | 195,620.00 | 289,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.34 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.94 | 16.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.02 | 2.22 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 39,729.84 | 57,372.34 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,176.30 | 55,309.73 |
| SET per Second | 40,833.00 | 57,142.86 |
| GET per Second | 34,590.11 | 55,493.89 |
| INCR per Second | 35,410.77 | 59,488.40 |
| LPUSH per Second | 39,184.95 | 58,105.75 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,509.68 | 60,422.96 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,791.76 | 57,703.40 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 52,854.12 |
| SADD per Second | 35,727.05 | 54,614.96 |
| HSET per Second | 35,790.98 | 55,432.37 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,478.88 | 58,858.15 |
| ZADD per Second | 38,850.04 | 57,273.77 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 57,570.52 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 17,461.15 | 35,778.18 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,711.29 | 19,638.65 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 4,860.50 | 14,444.61 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,094.67 | 12,823.80 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,041.01 | 47,596.38 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.83 | 0.45 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.78 | 0.47 |
| SET | 0.82 | 0.45 |
| GET | 0.94 | 0.47 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 0.44 |
| LPUSH | 0.85 | 0.45 |
| RPUSH | 0.91 | 0.43 |
| LPOP | 0.92 | 0.45 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.50 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 0.47 |
| HSET | 0.93 | 0.47 |
| SPOP | 0.84 | 0.44 |
| ZADD | 0.86 | 0.45 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.82 | 0.45 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.05 | 0.79 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.59 | 1.37 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7.19 | 2.03 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 8.42 | 2.13 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.12 | 0.68 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the benchmark performance between the DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) and Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) instances, it's evident that the Premium AMD instance offers substantially higher performance across the board, particularly in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads. The Premium AMD instance boasts significantly higher RPS (requests per second) for various Redis operations, faster CPU processing events per second, and better file I/O throughput, indicating it can handle heavier workloads more efficiently. The Regular (2 GB) instance, while competent for lighter tasks, falls short in processing power and resource availability, making it more suitable for low to moderate workload applications. Therefore, for tasks requiring substantial computational power, larger memory, or higher I/O operations, the Premium AMD instance is clearly the better choice. Conversely, the Regular instance could suffice for simpler, less demanding applications where cost and minimal resource usage are prioritized.
From the friendly human:
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