DigitalOcean Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. 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 – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:00:52 GMT | Sun, 31 May 2026 20:00:52 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 | $32.00 | $56.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 120 | 160 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 5 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | DO-Premium-AMD |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 1,996.25 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.28 | 3,992.50 |
| Events per Second | 1,013.24 | 1,535.42 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.59 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.99 | 0.65 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.46 | 0.89 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.18 | 0.69 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,737,587.61 | 4,867,578.39 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,626.55 | 4,753.49 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.19 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,690,301.22 | 4,347,879.44 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,580.37 | 4,245.98 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 0.56 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,904.49 | 2,384.51 |
| Writes per Second | 2,603.00 | 1,589.67 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 8,340.46 | 5,095.64 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 61.01 | 37.26 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 40.67 | 24.84 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.11 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.68 | 9.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.23 | 0.58 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 945.06 | 325.10 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 960.64 | 435.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 978.40 | 487.90 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 977.74 | 484.44 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,729.00 | 5,392.00 |
| Queries per second | 67,290.00 | 53,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.1 | 1.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.48 | 1.85 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.66 | 3 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.03 | 2.35 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,393.00 | 3,296.00 |
| Queries per second | 63,930.00 | 32,960.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.87 | 1.47 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.56 | 3.03 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.8 | 19.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 4.41 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,171.00 | 1,930.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,710.00 | 19,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.04 | 3.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.15 | 5.18 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 16.44 | 26.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.18 | 6.55 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 10,914.00 | 4,756.00 |
| Queries per second | 109,140.00 | 47,560.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.47 | 1.08 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 2.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 17.13 | 40.66 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.42 | 3.25 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,346,717.00 | 1,434,092.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,467,170.00 | 14,340,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 325.43 | 418.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 186,816.00 | 125,686.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,868,160.00 | 1,256,860.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.96 | 0.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,818.00 | 7,055.00 |
| Queries per second | 68,180.00 | 70,550.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.33 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.46 | 1.42 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 7.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.96 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,024.00 | 6,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 70,240.00 | 65,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.52 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.42 | 1.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.69 | 3.28 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 2.03 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 10,358.00 | 5,138.00 |
| Queries per second | 103,580.00 | 51,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.96 | 1.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.5 | 39.78 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 2.81 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,283.00 | 4,781.00 |
| Queries per second | 112,830.00 | 47,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 1.13 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.88 | 2.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.44 | 19.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.34 | 3.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 108,489.00 | 41,513.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,084,890.00 | 415,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.68 | 11.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.12 | 1.67 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 92,250.92 | 62,073.25 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 93,370.68 | 58,719.91 |
| SET per Second | 88,731.15 | 54,171.18 |
| GET per Second | 94,339.62 | 64,308.68 |
| INCR per Second | 91,491.30 | 55,648.30 |
| LPUSH per Second | 86,132.64 | 55,493.89 |
| RPUSH per Second | 95,602.30 | 52,938.06 |
| LPOP per Second | 73,964.50 | 62,539.09 |
| RPOP per Second | 82,781.46 | 66,269.05 |
| SADD per Second | 79,428.12 | 62,189.05 |
| HSET per Second | 95,147.48 | 55,157.20 |
| SPOP per Second | 82,236.84 | 54,674.69 |
| ZADD per Second | 91,743.12 | 55,035.77 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 79,491.26 | 55,035.77 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 51,786.64 | 37,355.25 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 23,158.87 | 21,715.53 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 16,113.44 | 16,084.93 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,839.00 | 14,990.26 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 92,936.80 | 57,770.08 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.32 | 0.42 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.31 | 0.44 |
| SET | 0.32 | 0.48 |
| GET | 0.33 | 0.40 |
| INCR | 0.32 | 0.47 |
| LPUSH | 0.30 | 0.47 |
| RPUSH | 0.28 | 0.49 |
| LPOP | 0.35 | 0.42 |
| RPOP | 0.32 | 0.39 |
| SADD | 0.33 | 0.42 |
| HSET | 0.32 | 0.47 |
| SPOP | 0.37 | 0.47 |
| ZADD | 0.29 | 0.48 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.35 | 0.47 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.63 | 0.78 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.33 | 1.26 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.81 | 1.71 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.98 | 1.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.38 | 0.47 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Comparing the two instances, the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) excels in Redis throughput and individual operation latency, showcasing robust performance in commands like LPUSH, GET, and LPOP with high requests per second and lower average latencies. Conversely, the DigitalOcean Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) provides superior multi-threading capabilities and overall CPU efficiency, with better results in bulk operations and memory throughput, although it lags slightly behind in Redis-specific benchmarks. Ideal use cases for the Intel instance would be applications that require high concurrency and lower latency per operation, while the AMD instance is better suited for workloads that benefit from higher core counts and greater overall processing power, such as complex computations and bulk data processing.
From the friendly human:
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