AWS’s Graviton5 has moved ahead of Intel’s Granite Rapids-based Xeon offering in a new set of Amazon EC2 tests, but AMD’s EPYC Turin still delivered the strongest overall results. The comparison, published by Phoronix on July 13, used 64GB
Phoronix tested Graviton5 in the
AWS made Graviton5-powered M9g instances generally available on June 10, claiming up to 25% higher compute performance than Graviton4. Phoronix’s results support a substantial generational improvement, helped by the move from Arm Neoverse-V2 to Neoverse-V3 cores and faster DDR5-8800 memory.
Against Intel’s M8i instance, Graviton5 was generally the better performer in the tested Linux software. In QuantLib, for example, it surpassed the Granite Rapids configuration, though AMD’s EPYC Turin system remained in front. Graviton5 also led the in-memory CockroachDB tests, where memory bandwidth appears to have mattered significantly.
AMD’s M8a configuration was the broad performance leader, however, and Phoronix found it could also offer the best performance per dollar in some workloads despite its higher hourly price.
That makes the Intel result less a pure architecture shootout than a comparison of AWS’s available instance configurations. It is still relevant for customers choosing among these specific EC2 sizes, but it should not be treated as a definitive statement on comparable bare-metal Xeon, EPYC, and Graviton CPUs.
For Linux services, containers, Java workloads, databases, and internally built applications already validated on Arm64, the results make M9g a credible lower-cost option against AWS’s Intel M8i instances. For Windows Server fleets, the immediate choice remains between the x86-based M8a and M8i families, with AMD’s Turin-backed M8a looking particularly strong where raw CPU throughput is the priority.
Windows administrators can treat Graviton5 as a Linux-side cost and capacity option rather than a replacement target for existing Windows EC2 deployments.
4xlarge instances across AWS’s current general-purpose families.Phoronix tested Graviton5 in the
m9g.4xlarge, AMD EPYC Turin in the m8a.4xlarge, Intel Xeon 6 Granite Rapids in the m8i.4xlarge, and the previous Graviton4 m8g.4xlarge. The workloads ran on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with Linux 7.0 and GCC 15.2.
Graviton5’s gains are real, but workload-dependent
AWS made Graviton5-powered M9g instances generally available on June 10, claiming up to 25% higher compute performance than Graviton4. Phoronix’s results support a substantial generational improvement, helped by the move from Arm Neoverse-V2 to Neoverse-V3 cores and faster DDR5-8800 memory.Against Intel’s M8i instance, Graviton5 was generally the better performer in the tested Linux software. In QuantLib, for example, it surpassed the Granite Rapids configuration, though AMD’s EPYC Turin system remained in front. Graviton5 also led the in-memory CockroachDB tests, where memory bandwidth appears to have mattered significantly.
AMD’s M8a configuration was the broad performance leader, however, and Phoronix found it could also offer the best performance per dollar in some workloads despite its higher hourly price.
The comparison has an important caveat
The three 64GB instances all expose 16 vCPUs, but they are not equivalent at the physical-core level. AWS’sm9g.4xlarge and m8a.4xlarge each provide 16 physical cores with one thread per core. The Intel m8i.4xlarge provides eight physical Granite Rapids cores with Hyper-Threading enabled, yielding 16 vCPUs.That makes the Intel result less a pure architecture shootout than a comparison of AWS’s available instance configurations. It is still relevant for customers choosing among these specific EC2 sizes, but it should not be treated as a definitive statement on comparable bare-metal Xeon, EPYC, and Graviton CPUs.
What it means for Windows shops
M9g is an Arm64 EC2 family and AWS lists it as Linux-only. Windows Server workloads cannot simply move from an Intel or AMD EC2 instance to Graviton5; administrators would need an Arm-compatible application stack and a supported operating system path, neither of which is currently offered for M9g.For Linux services, containers, Java workloads, databases, and internally built applications already validated on Arm64, the results make M9g a credible lower-cost option against AWS’s Intel M8i instances. For Windows Server fleets, the immediate choice remains between the x86-based M8a and M8i families, with AMD’s Turin-backed M8a looking particularly strong where raw CPU throughput is the priority.
Windows administrators can treat Graviton5 as a Linux-side cost and capacity option rather than a replacement target for existing Windows EC2 deployments.
References
- Primary source: Phoronix
Published: Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:53:00 GMT
Graviton5 Outperforming Intel Xeon Granite Rapids But Falls Short Of AMD EPYC Turin - Phoronix
Following the recent GA of the AWS M9g series as the first instances powered by the new Graviton5 CPUs, I recently ran benchmarks looking at Graviton4 vs.www.phoronix.com
