13-Way IBM POWER9 Talos II vs. Intel Xeon vs. AMD Linux Benchmarks On Debian

For those wondering about the performance-per-dollar, here are some metrics using the Raptor Computing Systems pricing for the POWER9 CPUs and the NewEgg.com pricing for the current Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC processors.

At least on a performance-per-dollar front of the CPU, the POWER9 processors are looking competitive with Intel and AMD.

Well, in some benchmarks, the x86_64 CPUs still offer better value with the current state of the Linux software on POWER9 as found with Debian Testing.

There is also to keep in mind motherboard cost differences and other factors in evaluating the total cost of ownership.

Overall, the POWER9 performance is looking increasingly competitive with Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC server hardware but there still are some areas that could use improvement around multimedia/encoding and interpreted languages. The added benefit to POWER9 with the Talos II is that these systems manufactured in the USA are among the most fully open-source systems available today. Those wishing to learn more about these POWER9 systems can do so at RaptorCS.com.

If you want to see how your own Linux system performance compares to the thirteen Intel/AMD/IBM CPU benchmarks in this article, simply install the Phoronix Test Suite and run phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1806251-AR-LINUXCPUS06 for your own side-by-side, fully-automated benchmark comparison.