DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Vultr High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 GMT | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $64.00 | $24.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 240 | 100 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 6 | 5 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | AMD EPYC-Genoa Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,995.31 | 2,900.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 1,024.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,990.61 | 5,800.00 |
| Events per Second | 2,100.00 | 4,640.69 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.2 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 2.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.22 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,031,036.30 | 7,477,512.86 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,936.56 | 7,302.26 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 1.14 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,327,248.72 | 7,470,053.68 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,225.83 | 7,294.97 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.58 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,848.36 | 7,520.15 |
| Writes per Second | 1,232.24 | 5,013.44 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,943.27 | 16,053.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 28.88 | 117.50 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 19.25 | 78.33 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.14 | 0.03 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.73 | 2.8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 0.11 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 496.91 | 636.97 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 678.09 | 656.50 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 755.25 | 673.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 759.88 | 669.89 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,172.00 | 9,956.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,720.00 | 99,560.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 0.72 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.32 | 3.1 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.61 | 1.1 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,301.00 | 9,961.00 |
| Queries per second | 23,010.00 | 99,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.64 | 11.2 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.3 | 1.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,495.00 | 4,604.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,950.00 | 46,040.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.89 | 1.75 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.68 | 2.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.01 | 5.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.46 | 2.57 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,010.00 | 15,661.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,100.00 | 156,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.44 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.32 | 0.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.62 | 12.49 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.09 | 0.78 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,201,092.00 | 2,948,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 12,010,920.00 | 29,485,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 566.03 | 209.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 157,927.00 | 219,418.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,579,270.00 | 2,194,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.99 | 3.83 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.06 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,434.00 | 14,794.00 |
| Queries per second | 54,340.00 | 147,940.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.25 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.84 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.81 | 6.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.71 | 0.87 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,582.00 | 14,380.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,820.00 | 143,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.25 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 0.69 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.15 | 1.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 0.9 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,033.00 | 14,781.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,330.00 | 147,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1 | 0.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.29 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.75 | 2.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.99 | 0.9 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,268.00 | 15,048.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,680.00 | 150,480.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 0.46 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.06 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.49 | 3.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.57 | 0.84 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 24,924.00 | 156,902.00 |
| Queries per second | 249,240.00 | 1,569,020.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.64 | 7.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 0.08 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 93,545.37 | 61,500.61 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 87,796.30 | 57,770.08 |
| SET per Second | 93,457.94 | 57,803.47 |
| GET per Second | 94,250.71 | 58,275.06 |
| INCR per Second | 85,106.38 | 58,343.06 |
| LPUSH per Second | 95,057.03 | 57,803.47 |
| RPUSH per Second | 86,505.19 | 58,275.06 |
| LPOP per Second | 89,285.71 | 58,377.11 |
| RPOP per Second | 100,100.10 | 58,275.06 |
| SADD per Second | 90,661.83 | 57,903.88 |
| HSET per Second | 90,415.91 | 57,670.13 |
| SPOP per Second | 96,432.02 | 57,273.77 |
| ZADD per Second | 97,751.71 | 58,719.91 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 97,751.71 | 57,504.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 58,997.05 | 50,000.00 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 26,191.72 | 33,489.62 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 15,961.69 | 26,130.13 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,390.56 | 24,467.83 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 73,152.89 | 57,240.98 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.28 | 0.43 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.31 | 0.45 |
| SET | 0.31 | 0.45 |
| GET | 0.28 | 0.44 |
| INCR | 0.31 | 0.44 |
| LPUSH | 0.29 | 0.45 |
| RPUSH | 0.32 | 0.44 |
| LPOP | 0.32 | 0.44 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 0.44 |
| SADD | 0.32 | 0.45 |
| HSET | 0.29 | 0.45 |
| SPOP | 0.30 | 0.45 |
| ZADD | 0.31 | 0.44 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.28 | 0.45 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.46 | 0.52 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.05 | 0.77 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.04 | 0.99 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.12 | 1.04 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.49 | 0.45 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Upon analyzing the benchmarks for both DigitalOcean's Premium Intel instance and Vultr's High Performance AMD instance, it's evident that DigitalOcean's instance excels in raw performance, offering higher throughput and lower latency across various metrics such as CPU operations, Redis benchmarks, file I/O, and memory operations, primarily due to its higher core count and advanced Intel architecture. Conversely, Vultr's AMD instance, while competitive, particularly shines in specific high-throughput scenarios but generally falls behind in latency and throughput across most metrics, suggesting it may be more suitable for cost-sensitive applications where maximum performance isn't the primary concern. DigitalOcean's instance is ideal for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, while Vultr's might be more appropriate for scenarios requiring lower costs over slightly reduced performance.
From the friendly human:
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