VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (1 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:36:36 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:21 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-27-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version 8.0.5 8.0.5
Location Newark, NJ Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $12.00 $6.00
RAM (GB) 2 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 64 25
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX) Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,792.05 2,893.20
CPU Cache Size (KB) 16,384.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 7,584.10 5,786.40
Events per Second 1,466.74 1,049.60
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.67 0.9
Average Latency (ms) 0.68 0.95
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.3 4.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.72 1.12

Memory

Memory Read

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 7,681,495.84 5,247,794.58
Mebibytes per second 7,501.46 5,124.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.58 2.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 7,602,534.50 5,230,407.37
Mebibytes per second 7,424.35 5,107.82
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.35 1.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 4,496.60 4,064.54
Writes per Second 2,997.70 2,709.66
Fsyncs per Second 9,593.60 8,672.51
Read Mebibytes per Second 70.26 63.51
Written Mebibytes per Second 46.84 42.34
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.12 6.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.18 0.19

Mutex

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,184.90 1,611.76
Average Latency (ms) 1,190.04 1,623.75
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,196.73 1,635.20
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,191.92 1,648.20

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 9,469.00 8,324.00
Queries per second 94,690.00 83,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.89 1.06
Average Latency (ms) 1.06 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.85 5.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.03 1.5

MySQL Write-only

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 10,900.00 9,781.00
Queries per second 109,000.00 97,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.63 0.77
Average Latency (ms) 0.92 1.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.97 10.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.18 1.39

MySQL Read/Write

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,779.00 4,006.00
Queries per second 47,790.00 40,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.69 2.02
Average Latency (ms) 2.09 2.49
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.55 8.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 3.13

MySQL INSERT

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 19,198.00 17,670.00
Queries per second 191,980.00 176,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.37 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 0.52 0.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.58 8.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.65 0.72

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,016,592.00 1,317,592.00
Queries per second 20,165,920.00 13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 230.01 320.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 218,879.00 214,470.00
Queries per second 2,188,790.00 2,144,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 2 3.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.05 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,852.00 5,913.00
Queries per second 78,520.00 59,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.41 0.53
Average Latency (ms) 1.27 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.85 6.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.7 2.22

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 11,560.00 8,048.00
Queries per second 115,600.00 80,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.29 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 0.86 1.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.31 3.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.12 1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 18,734.00 17,291.00
Queries per second 187,340.00 172,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.38 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 0.53 0.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.34 7.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.72 0.75

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 18,579.00 18,069.00
Queries per second 185,790.00 180,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.37 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 0.54 0.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.7 5.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.69 0.7

MySQL DELETE

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 154,977.00 154,947.00
Queries per second 1,549,770.00 1,549,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.05 9.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.09 0.11

Redis

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 54,734.54 45,766.59
PING_MBULK per Second 53,475.94 44,424.70
SET per Second 54,288.82 45,045.04
GET per Second 54,914.88 45,065.34
INCR per Second 55,401.66 46,663.56
LPUSH per Second 53,792.36 44,603.03
RPUSH per Second 54,525.63 46,146.75
LPOP per Second 53,078.56 44,903.46
RPOP per Second 52,631.58 44,523.60
SADD per Second 54,436.58 45,392.64
HSET per Second 53,619.30 46,468.40
SPOP per Second 54,734.54 47,036.69
ZADD per Second 52,659.29 45,682.96
ZPOPMIN per Second 53,561.86 45,871.56
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 36,845.98 31,387.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 22,696.32 17,470.30
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 15,885.62 12,192.15
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 13,700.51 10,672.36
MSET (10 keys) per Second 50,968.40 44,503.79

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.560.67
PING_MBULK0.570.67
SET0.570.68
GET0.560.68
INCR0.560.66
LPUSH0.580.69
RPUSH0.570.67
LPOP0.590.69
RPOP0.590.70
SADD0.570.68
HSET0.580.67
SPOP0.560.65
ZADD0.590.68
ZPOPMIN0.570.67
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.840.99
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.441.78
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.042.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.352.99
MSET (10 keys)0.640.75

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Based on benchmark results, the High Frequency Intel (2 GB) instance from Vultr outperforms the High Performance Intel (1 GB) instance in most metrics, especially in Redis operations where it achieves higher requests per second (e.g., GET rps: 54914.88 vs 45065.34) and lower latencies. While both instances show similar file I/O performance, the High Frequency instance edges out in CPU benchmark results and overall throughput, suggesting it is superior for CPU-intensive tasks or applications requiring high concurrency and low latency. For users needing a balance between budget and performance, particularly for compute-heavy workloads, the High Frequency Intel (2 GB) instance is the better choice.

From the friendly human:

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