Wondering if you should go for an Intel or AMD CPU when deploying EC2 instances in AWS? Check this benchmark comparison between the two platforms.

I will be using sysbench tool to benchmark Intel-based T3 instnce, and another AMD-based T3A instance.

AMD-based t3a.small specs:

• Powered by AMD EPYC 7571 @ 2.5 GHz.
• 2 vCPU.
• 2 GiB of RAM.
• 24 CPU credit/hr.

Intel-based t3.small specs:

• Powered by Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 @ 3.1 GHz.
• 2 vCPU.
• 2 GiB of RAM.
• 24 CPU credit/hr.

Install the benchmark tool

curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/akopytov/sysbench/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt -y install sysbench

CPU benchmark

AMD

sysbench cpu --threads=2 run

total time:                          10.0012s
total number of events:              13277

Intel

sysbench cpu --threads=2 run

total time:                          10.0002s
total number of events:              16202

Memory benchmark

AMD

sysbench memory --threads=2 run

Total operations: 58636950 (5862640.73 per second)
57262.65 MiB transferred (5725.24 MiB/sec)

Intel

sysbench memory --threads=2 run

Total operations: 55829314 (5579740.79 per second)
54520.81 MiB transferred (5448.97 MiB/sec)

Disk I/O benchmark

AMD

dd bs=16k count=102400 oflag=direct if=/dev/zero of=test_data
102400+0 records in
102400+0 records out

1677721600 bytes (1.7 GB, 1.6 GiB) copied, 83.592 s, 20.1 MB/s

dd bs=16K count=102400 iflag=direct if=test_data of=/dev/null
102400+0 records in
102400+0 records out

1677721600 bytes (1.7 GB, 1.6 GiB) copied, 54.1645 s, 31.0 MB/s

Intel

dd bs=16k count=102400 oflag=direct if=/dev/zero of=test_data
102400+0 records in
102400+0 records out

1677721600 bytes (1.7 GB, 1.6 GiB) copied, 71.3832 s, 23.5 MB/s

dd bs=16K count=102400 iflag=direct if=test_data of=/dev/null
102400+0 records in
102400+0 records out

1677721600 bytes (1.7 GB, 1.6 GiB) copied, 40.9778 s, 40.9 MB/s

Pricing (US-EAST-1)

AMD

• On-Demand hourly: 0.0188 USD/HR
• On-Demand monthly: $8.614
• 1 Yr Reserved: $8.614/month
• 3 Yr Reserved: $5.913/month

Intel

• On-Demand hourly: 0.0208 USD/Hr (1.1x more expensive than AMD)
• On-Demand monthly: $15.184
• 1 Yr Reserved: $9.490/month
• 3 Yr Reserved: $6.570/month

Summary

• Intel has better CPU performance and Disk I/O.
• AMD has better memory performance and marginal cost saving.
• After CPU credits are exhausted, the performance will degrade, unless you opt-in for the unlimited CPU credits for extra cost.

Futher reads:

• Inspired by LearnAWS
• t3.small on Vantage
• t3a.small on Vantage