Skip to main content

One of the internet’s largest networks chooses AMD CPUs over Intel’s

AMD just picked up a big win. Cloudflare, one of the largest networks powering the internet today, announced that it will continue using AMD’s Epyc server CPUs instead of Intel Xeon for its next generation of servers. For these new servers, Cloudflare is moving from second-generation Epyc Rome processors to third-generation Epyc Milan processors.

In a blog post describing the testing processor, Cloudflare’s Chris Howells said that the competing Intel chips “did not meet our requirements.” Cloudflare tested Intel’s Ice Lake Xeon processors against the latest AMD Epyc chips and found that the power consumption was just too high.

AMD Epyc processor in a server.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

“Although Intel’s chips were able to compete with AMD in terms of raw performance, the power consumption was several-hundred watts higher per server — that’s enormous,” Howells wrote. The blog post also described Intel’s performance per watt as “unattractive.”

Recommended Videos

Cloudflare switched to AMD chips with its 10th generation of servers. Previously, the company used dual-socket systems with two Xeon processors. In 2020, it switched to single-socket systems using AMD Epyc, which it’s continuing to do with the 11th-generation servers.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

Although Cloudflare is announcing the switch now, the company has been working on the new servers since mid-2020. The network touches over 200 cities around the world, so as Howells writes, “it’s essential to get things right the first time.” The new servers are being updated with the 64-core AMD Epyc 7713 CPU, over the 48-core Epyc 7642.

Cloudflare noted a 29% increase over the last-generation chip, while consuming about the same amount of power. The new servers are getting a few other updates as well, including two 2TB SSDs instead of three 1TB SSDs, as well as 384GB of DDR4-3200 memory rather than 256GB of DDR4-2933.

Although AMD won this generation of servers, that could change. Intel’s Ice Lake Xeon platform is a few years old, and the company is working on its next-generation Sapphire Rapids platform for 2022. The upcoming chips will be built using Intel 7, which is the same manufacturing process behind Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake processors.

Intel has struggled to maintain its lead in the desktop and server market over the last few generations, largely due to high thermal and power requirements. Alder Lake and Sapphire Rapids feature a smaller manufacturing process, which should help with thermal and power demands.

However, numerous delays have brought the new manufacturing process into question. Sapphire Rapids chips are planned for use in the Aurora supercomputer at the Argonne National Laboratory. If they hold up, maybe we’ll see Intel show back up in the data center.

Right now, AMD is making inroads into that space. The Epyc processors largely mirror Threadripper processors seen on high-end desktops like the Lenovo P620, boasting high core counts with relatively low power demands.

Jacob Roach
Lead Reporter, PC Hardware
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
AMD and Intel have formed a coalition to fight off Qualcomm
An Intel executive holding a Lunar Lake CPU.

AMD and Intel are teaming up. Shocking, yes, but the two giants who duke it out over the making the best processors are joining forces as the leaders of the new x86 ecosystem advisory group, the stated mission of which is "bringing together technology leaders to shape the future of the world’s most widely used computing architecture."

For those of you that get sufficient vitamin D, x86 is an instruction set architecture, or ISA. It's been around for nearly 50 years, and it's the bedrock of modern computing. An ISA dictates how a CPU reads and executes instructions. AMD and Intel may be fierce rivals, but they are the two major companies producing x86 processors today. Although AMD and Intel are leading the group, an ensemble of massive tech companies have also joined, including Microsoft, Google, HP, Dell, Broadcom, Lenovo, and Oracle.

Read more
AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D may not give Intel any breathing room
The Ryzen 7 7800X3D installed in a motherboard.

The competition between Intel Arrow Lake and AMD Zen 5 hasn't been as fierce as usual, with both lineups delivering small gen-to-gen improvements. However, it seems that AMD may soon add a staple to its list of the best processors, and the CPU might be announced at the worst possible time for Intel. I'm talking about the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which now has a rumored release date alongside some performance benchmarks.

The release date speculation was initially shared on Bilibili, but the user has since deleted their post. However, the discussion continued on Chiphell forums, spilling the beans on both the official announcement date and the possible release date.

Read more
How AMD boosted Ryzen 9000 CPUs by 17% overnight
amd ryzen 9000 retested dt respec

AMD's Zen 5 CPUs, called Ryzen 9000, released with a collective sigh. None of them have it made it onto the list of the best processors, not so much because they're bad, but just because they aren't the best option. Outside of a few niche tasks, they felt more like a price increase and less like a performance increase compared to the previous generation. But that's changing.

We've seen a handful of updates from AMD over the last couple of months, which have culminated in a new BIOS for AMD motherboards that boosts performance across the range -- or so AMD says. I retested the full range of Zen 5 CPUs across games and productivity apps to see where they really sit now that the launch dust has settled.
How did we get here?

Read more