DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (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 running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 31 May 2026 08:00:52 GMT | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 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 | $18.00 | $64.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 60 | 240 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 3 | 6 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | DO-Premium-Intel |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 1,995.31 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 4,096.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.28 | 3,990.61 |
| Events per Second | 813.64 | 2,100.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.46 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 0.48 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.88 | 0.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.44 | 0.49 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,863,161.54 | 4,031,036.30 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,772.62 | 3,936.56 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.47 | 0.09 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,937,174.33 | 4,327,248.72 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,844.90 | 4,225.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.03 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,604.65 | 1,848.36 |
| Writes per Second | 1,069.77 | 1,232.24 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,429.94 | 3,943.27 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 25.07 | 28.88 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.72 | 19.25 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.88 | 32.73 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.83 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,275.46 | 496.91 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,454.38 | 678.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,488.79 | 755.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,479.41 | 759.88 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,594.00 | 5,172.00 |
| Queries per second | 15,940.00 | 51,720.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.68 | 1.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.27 | 1.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 87.36 | 8.32 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 24.38 | 2.61 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,576.00 | 2,301.00 |
| Queries per second | 15,760.00 | 23,010.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2 | 1.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.34 | 4.34 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 34.54 | 12.64 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 14.46 | 7.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 582.00 | 1,495.00 |
| Queries per second | 5,820.00 | 14,950.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.92 | 2.89 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 17.17 | 6.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 125.99 | 19.01 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 47.47 | 10.46 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,759.00 | 3,010.00 |
| Queries per second | 27,590.00 | 30,100.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.36 | 1.11 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.62 | 3.32 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 34.11 | 14.62 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.04 | 6.09 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 964,103.00 | 1,201,092.00 |
| Queries per second | 9,641,030.00 | 12,010,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 459.02 | 566.03 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 54,163.00 | 157,927.00 |
| Queries per second | 541,630.00 | 1,579,270.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 23.62 | 2.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.43 | 0.09 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,859.00 | 5,434.00 |
| Queries per second | 38,590.00 | 54,340.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.59 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 53.87 | 14.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.55 | 2.71 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,179.00 | 6,582.00 |
| Queries per second | 71,790.00 | 65,820.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.38 | 0.57 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.39 | 1.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.44 | 5.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 2.66 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,435.00 | 3,033.00 |
| Queries per second | 24,350.00 | 30,330.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.15 | 1 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 3.29 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 52.68 | 67.75 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 8.9 | 5.99 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,495.00 | 3,268.00 |
| Queries per second | 24,950.00 | 32,680.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 1.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4 | 3.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 40.4 | 11.49 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 8.9 | 5.57 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 13,719.00 | 24,924.00 |
| Queries per second | 137,190.00 | 249,240.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.4 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 38.65 | 26.64 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 2.81 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 78,740.16 | 93,545.37 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 77,821.02 | 87,796.30 |
| SET per Second | 75,815.01 | 93,457.94 |
| GET per Second | 75,414.78 | 94,250.71 |
| INCR per Second | 76,628.36 | 85,106.38 |
| LPUSH per Second | 76,511.09 | 95,057.03 |
| RPUSH per Second | 79,617.83 | 86,505.19 |
| LPOP per Second | 79,808.46 | 89,285.71 |
| RPOP per Second | 74,074.07 | 100,100.10 |
| SADD per Second | 77,101.00 | 90,661.83 |
| HSET per Second | 74,294.21 | 90,415.91 |
| SPOP per Second | 72,358.90 | 96,432.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 78,616.35 | 97,751.71 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 73,800.73 | 97,751.71 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 53,705.69 | 58,997.05 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 27,218.29 | 26,191.72 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 18,573.55 | 15,961.69 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 16,578.25 | 14,390.56 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 73,206.44 | 73,152.89 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.33 | 0.28 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.33 | 0.31 |
| SET | 0.35 | 0.31 |
| GET | 0.34 | 0.28 |
| INCR | 0.41 | 0.31 |
| LPUSH | 0.34 | 0.29 |
| RPUSH | 0.33 | 0.32 |
| LPOP | 0.33 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.35 | 0.27 |
| SADD | 0.34 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.35 | 0.29 |
| SPOP | 0.36 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.33 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.35 | 0.28 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.52 | 0.46 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.13 | 1.05 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.47 | 2.04 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.62 | 2.12 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.36 | 0.49 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) instance demonstrates superior overall performance compared to the Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) instance, as evidenced by significantly higher RPS (requests per second) rates, lower latencies, and improved throughput across various benchmarks, particularly in CPU and Redis operations, indicating better handling of CPU-intensive and memory-intensive workloads. The Premium instance's increased CPU power, larger RAM, and NVMe storage translate to faster data processing and lower response times, making it ideal for high-demand applications, while the Regular instance, though more affordable, may be suitable for lighter workloads where lower cost is a priority over maximum performance.
From the friendly human:
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