Linode Guessing Linode's next server cpus ?

Bit bored so thought I'd guess what Linode's next server cpu update would be based on current E5-2680v3 and E5-2697v4 prices as they're the current generation of cpus used by Linode

Intel Xeon Scalable cpus seem to be the logical option seeing as DigitalOcean's High CPU droplets went with Intel Xeon Platinum 8168s. So thought I'd see how they stack up for that price range Intel® Product Specification Comparison



With Xeon Platinum 8168 in compare Intel® Product Specification Comparison



Maybe Linode can go with Xeon Gold 6150 for clock speeds matching DigitalOcean's Platinum 8168 ? Intel® Product Specification Comparison

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Yeah true, maybe Linode's stocked up massively for E5-2697v4 already

 

Yeah - for me it's about every bit of performance I can leverage from server hardware/cpus to the software stack itself i.e. Centmin Mod

 

so far @bassie and @jlchandler have reported Intel Xeon Gold 6148 scalable cpus in Linode London and Newark Linode - Vultr - Move from vultr to linode caused a huge performance decrease Looking back at first post in this thread last year, I did mention Xeon Gold 6148 as a likely candidate

• Intel® Product Specification Comparison
• Xeon Gold 6148 - Intel - WikiChip
• 20 core turbo boost for normal work loads is 3.10Ghz, AVX2 is 2.60Ghz and AVX512 work loads at 2.20Ghz

Code (Text):

Architecture:          x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                1
On-line CPU(s) list:   0
Thread(s) per core:    1
Core(s) per socket:    1
Socket(s):             1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 85
Model name:            Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6148 CPU @ 2.40GHz
Stepping:              4
CPU MHz:               2399.996
BogoMIPS:              4801.99
Virtualization:        VT-x
Hypervisor vendor:     KVM
Virtualization type:   full
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              4096K
L3 cache:              16384K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0
Flags:                 fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl xtopology cpuid pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 fma cx16 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault invpcid_single pti tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves arat pku ospke

 

woah... AMD EPYC 7501 That's bloody awesome and makes sense from my limited AMD EPYC 7401P tests, you really need to be on 4.15+ Linux Kernels for AMD EPYC proper performance and Linode uses 4.15+ Kernels by default. And also explains the recent surge in Linode 4.15 kernels being released more frequently Available Linux Kernels - Linode

AMD EPYC™ 7501 | AMD



Dual AMD EPYC 7501 = 64 cpu cores and 128 cpu thread goodness !

 

For anything that depends on cpu clock speed i.e. source compiling, then Intel Xeon Gold 6148 Scalable cpu with 20 cores/40 threads all core turbo boost @ 3.10Ghz and thus will be faster than AMD EPYC 7501 with is 32 core/64 threads all core turbo boost @ 2.60Ghz. Will be interesting to see how AMD EPYC 7501 compares to Linode's Xeon E5-2697v4 which is 18C/36T with turbo boost all cores @ 2.80Ghz.

Another factor is memory bandwidth available for stuff like Nginx proxy_cache, PHP-FPM fastcgi_cache, Redis & Memcached servers, Varnish Cache etc. Also CPU's cpu caches i.e. L3 Cache speed and size.

But in VPS host node environment, you're not running your VPS in isolation but shared with other VPS neighbours, so how many cpu cores/threads are engaged collectively on the whole VPS host node will determine what average clock speed would be ??? Would need to know the turbo boost speeds of each cpu when not all cpu core/threads are engaged too.

For example Intel Xeon Gold 6148 as all 20 core turbo boost @ 3.10Ghz but if only 12 cores engaged turbo boost is @ 3.40Ghz. According to EPYC 7501 - AMD - WikiChip, AMD EPYC 7501 turbo boost profiles are as follows - so 12 core turbo boost is @ 3.0Ghz while 13-32 cores is @ 2.60Ghz.

Intel Xeon E5-2697v4 all 18 core turbo boost is at 2.80Ghz but according to Xeon E5-2697 v4 - Intel - WikiChip, 6 cores at 3.10Ghz, 8 cores at 2.9Ghz and 12 cores at 2.80Ghz

 

STH has benchmark review for Intel Xeon Gold 6132 which includes Xeon Gold 6138 and AMD EPYC 7501 results at Intel Xeon Gold 6132 Benchmarks and Review with Power Consumption

alot are multi-threaded benchmarks so naturally AMD EPYC 7501 with 32C/64T > Intel Xeon Gold 6138 with 20C/40T

 

Asked Linode about new processors on their new forums Intel Xeon Gold 6148 & AMD EPYC 7501 Announcements ? | Linode Questions

 

Yeah they're probably testing the waters as I haven't been able to find any newly spun up Linodes with the newer cpus so far

 

maybe Linode will need to roll out more AMD EPYC cpus due to Spectre-NG Security - Intel Processor Flaw 'kernel memory leaking' [Spectre & Meltdown]

 

thanks @jlchandler looks like AMD EPYC 7451 and EPYC 7501 are used now

• AMD EPYC 7451 2.3Ghz base and 2.9Ghz Turbo 24C/48T AMD EPYC™ 7451 | AMD
• AMD EPYC 7501 2.0Ghz base and 3.0Ghz Turbo 32C/64T AMD EPYC™ 7501 | AMD

 

sweet thanks for the heads up.. good news to go with Linode's announced dedicated cpu plans I guess Linode - Linode new dedicated cpu plans in 2019