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Are Hetzner's i9-13900 worth it? better alternatives?
Hello,
With the new microcode fixes for the known issue about 13th/14th gen intel processor, I am starting to think about upgrading my 9900k server.
I wanted to know if the servers from Hetzner are now a safe bet and worth it? (not underpowered? poorly cooled?) Are people able to squeeze good performance from these? or should I go for the 13500 (which is still a slight upgrade compared to 9900k, and has a very attractive price!)
I am open to suggestions for alternative intel CPUs/providers.
Please share your opinions on this, thanks
Comments
I rented a 13900 from hetzner and within a few weeks the server froze and needed to be manually rebooted. This was before anyone even knew about the flaws. The temps were constantly spiking to 90C. You might be able to avoid this by underclocking the CPU. Honestly I would just get the ryzen for a peace of mind.
Why not a Ryzen?
I don't see any reason to choose high end Intel CPU right now. AMD Ryzen is far more power efficiency and better cores performance
@MrRadic and @jbz
I never took AMD for a serious company, never had anything that worked fine from them since 2005, be it servers or laptops. The main reason tho is because I use software that only work with intel CPUs.
Also the 13500 from hetzner is better than AX52 and AX42 which are more expensive!
the 13900 is better (in theory) than the AX102 which is is more expensive at Hetzner.
If intel CPU are undercooled at Hetzner, I guess there is no reason the AMD ones will work better?
I believe the Intel issues affect only when you overclock the CPUs. We have recently started offering i9 14900K. This was before Intel released a fix. Haven't noticed any issues so far.
Things have considerably changed.
AMD is basically dominating the server space now, their top of the line EPYC processors are so much more power efficient, performant, and lower cost than Intel.
With the introduction of E-cores and P-cores on the consumer lineup of Intel processors along with horrid power efficiency and stability issues, Intel is basically completely out of the question for us in terms of servers. At least until they can get their act together. It's also why hyperscalers like Oracle, Google, and Amazon are starting to buy up AMD EPYC processors.
I would give them a shot again if your application can support it. AMD is far better than what they used to be.
because hetzner sells the intels at cheaper $/passmark, especially single threaded performance.
But passmark is useless if you have to underclock the intel to be stable, but people don't know this.
It is known that intel has been overclocking their cpus to the limit recently to gain an edge over AMD since they are 1 or more process nodes behind.
Those Intel chips are designed to boost to achieve higher benchmark scores, but the Ryzen do circles around them in real world performance.
The Ryzen 9000 chips have serious improvements with AVX loads, but aren't available from Hetz yet.
Meh
I sure didn’t notice that for our stuff
The EX44 (i5 13500) delivers (from my experience) outstanding performance when taking pricing into account
Also, a Geekbench test for example is quite long
If that’s all ’the boost’, then that’s great for tons of real world usages, such as websites with visitor spikes
As much as I love Ryzens, Intel core/ultra will outperform Ryzens any day. But Ryzen is better for server workloads. 9950X has a nice uplift over 7950X but the difference is ~50% compared to 5950X to 7950X.
Watch out for 2025/2026. Intel is set to take back the crown from AMD.
The price to performance for Epyc VPSes are amazing.
The real winner for the 9950X was heat and improvements in AVX and other accelerated loads.
No doubt. AMD did a good job here. Although it is probably not as much as AMD would like us to believe.
The problem is, Intel is probably doing the same with Arrow Lake and beyond. It is yet to be seen whether Intel can topple Ryzen with Arrow. If not, then in 2026.
Depends on the specific CPU models and how they're configured. I have seen higher end Ryzen cpus paired with lowest speed memory by some Web hosts. So some workloads would have comparatively lower performance. I like Phoronix.com comparison reviews and benchmarks and even them with same speed memory show some workloads favour Intel over Ryzen like Nginx, Python, PHP, Redis, Memcached. Though seems Ryzen 9000 Zen5 seems to be the first from AMD to get closer if not beat Intel in such work loads
https://www.phoronix.com/search/Ryzen+9+9950X
Zen 5’s 2-Ahead Branch Predictor Unit https://chipsandcheese.com/2024/07/26/zen-5s-2-ahead-branch-predictor-unit-how-30-year-old-idea-allows-for-new-tricks/ is one improvement for AMD Zen5
It is not due to providers. If you install 4x RAM, memory speed will nose dive. That has always been the case for previous Ryzens:
Ryzen 5950X with DDR4-2133 would be slow
That's a shame. Ryzen is heavily memory-dependent due to its infinity fabric. Much of its performance advantage is gone (not totally) if memory speeds are low.
Then again, if you want to offer Ryznes for pennies, you will have to cut all sorts of corners.
Yup AMD Ryzen/EPYC really is memory speed dependent for some tasks. Phoronix did some tests for latest Zen5 https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen9-9950x-ddr5
AMD Ryzen Zen5 paired with DDR5-6400 CAS30 kits would be nice https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ddr5/gskill-launches-ultra-low-latency-ram-for-intel-and-amd-cpus
Thanks all for your input! As emgh said, the performance/price ratio is an important factor to me and the 13500 from hetzner is good in that area.
I think I will go for the I5-13500. Seems stable and unaffected by the issue from what I read on reddit. It has good value for money and there are no Amd offers in the same price range that will offer the same performance.
(on that note if anyone wants to transfer an EX44 (i5-13500) I will happily take it)
Hetzner confirmed via email they are rolling out motherboard updates when asked and are getting less crash reports.
I will wait a bit before making a choice and upgrade to either an epyc/I9-13900.
Share a yabs.sh!