Why Hosters Seeking Performance, Power Efficiency, and Value Should Choose AMD EPYC™ Servers
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Why Hosters Seeking Performance, Power Efficiency, and Value Should Choose AMD EPYC™ Servers
In an ever-evolving computing landscape, hosters find themselves in a unique position: Unlike hyperscalers such as AWS and Azure, hosters cater to a more specialized audience by offering a combination of cloud, bare-metal hosting, virtual private servers, and managed hosting services. It’s a valuable but very challenging business: Their customers demand flexibility, performance, and competitive pricing.
Hosters have traditionally relied on midrange to high-end server infrastructure to compose and deliver services. While these servers provide premium scalability and reliability, their price point can be too high to attract smaller customers or workloads. To stay competitive, many hosters have pivoted to entry-level server CPU platforms that offer value, energy efficiency, and performance.
Bare-Metal Hosting
Particularly in Europe, hosters operate within a fragmented market where data privacy laws and regional regulations give them a competitive edge over hyperscalers. The European hosting space has thrived on the foundation of bare-metal hosting, in which customers rent physical servers instead of virtualized instances. Unlike cloud-based solutions, where customers pay for a predetermined amount of compute power from a provider-designated pool of systems, bare-metal hosting provides full control, root access, and customization over specific assigned hardware.
For companies like these, the ability to offer customers a variety of hardware configurations at attractive price points is paramount. Rising energy costs and growing workload needs have driven OVHcloud and others to seek out the latest generation of AMD EPYC™ processors, particularly the AMD EPYC 4004 series, which balances cost, efficiency, and raw performance.
“Driven by our customers use cases, market demands and a strong AMD technological partnership - we are extremely happy to offer our bare metal platforms with AMD EPYC 4004 series processors, the most relevant and economically attractive choice for strong performance and scalability,” said Yaniv Fdida, Chief Product and Technology Officer at OVHCloud.
With the AMD EPYC 4000 series processors, hosters can offer flexibility of configuration with similar and predictable performance.
The AMD Advantage for Hosters
Hosters operate on tight margins, and they relentlessly optimize platform design, cooling, and hardware utilization to improve return on investment (ROI). The ability to manage Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while recovering the cost of hardware as quickly as possible is crucial.
AMD understands the business challenges hosters face, designing products with them in mind. AMD product value enables hosters to recover hardware costs without compromises. Here are a few ways that the AMD EPYC portfolio differentiates itself:
Unbeatable Price-Performance Ratio: Price sensitivity dominates the hosting market, especially at the lower end, where high volume drives profitability, but their customers don’t want “yestertech.” AMD EPYC 4000 series processors provide a broad portfolio of core count offerings, strong single-threaded performance, and competitive pricing. Hosters can rent out powerful configurations at attractive price points, making their offerings more appealing to end customers.
Energy Efficiency and Lower Operational Costs: Power consumption is one of the largest operating expenses for hosters. Servers often sit idle for long periods, and high power usage translates directly into higher power bills. AMD offers low-power CPUs, including upcoming 12-core and 16-core options at a 65-watt power level, allowing hosters to minimize energy use without sacrificing performance.
Flexible Scalability Without Complexity: Because their customers’ needs are so varied, hosters require a streamlined portfolio with strong performance options across different price points. AMD provides that with a well-defined product lineup, allowing hosters to offer scalable solutions without managing an overwhelming number of SKUs. With fewer variations to manage, hosters can simplify procurement and inventory management while still providing diverse computing options.
Security & Reliability: From support of server operating systems & ECC memory to security features such as Secure Boot and TSME (Transparent Secure Memory Encryption), AMD EPYC 4000 series processors provide easy-to-use, compatible server solutions to enable hosters to power everyday processing needs of end users.
AMD offers a versatile platform portfolio through partners including Supermicro, Lenovo, ASRock Rack, MSi, Gigabyte, Tyan, and more.
Bare-Metal vs. Cloud Hosting
Bare-metal hosting is often seen as a lower-cost alternative to cloud computing for customers who require full control over their infrastructure. Unlike hyperscalers, which rent virtualized compute power, bare-metal solutions allow users to rent entire physical servers, offering greater flexibility and performance consistency.
AMD's leadership in this space is fueled by the ability to deliver value, with a full portfolio across the AMD EPYC 4004, 7003, 8004, 9004, and the newest 9005 processor families:
- Outstanding performance and feature sets at a variety of price points.
- Low power consumption – reducing overhead costs and improving sustainability.
- Support for virtualization – enabling hosters to offer both dedicated and multi-tenant environments efficiently.
- RAS features from Entry to Enterprise.
- Security features with AMD Infinity Guard, including Secure Boot, Transparent Secure Memory Encryption, Shadow Stack, Secure Encrypted Virtualization & others.
Even within cloud offerings, the range of AMD EPYC processors provides a clear advantage. Hosters that offer virtual private servers (VPS) or cloud-based solutions can benefit from a full range of AMD EPYC processors featuring high thread count and efficiency, allowing them to pack more users per server while maintaining performance levels and strict cost management. The AMD EPYC 4004 offers compelling value, but this diverse market needs a broad spectrum of solution options.
Why Contabo Chose AMD
One example of a hoster leveraging AMD EPYC server technology is Contabo, a provider of high-performance virtual private servers (VPS) and bare-metal hosting. Contabo recently introduced the AMD EPYC 9224 (formerly code-named “Genoa”) processor into its Bare Metal lineup, recognizing the significant advantages it offers in performance, efficiency, and security.
In a recent blog post, Contabo highlighted why AMD was their choice, saying it marked a leap forward in performance, efficiency, security, and innovation.
The AMD EPYC 9224 processor offers enhanced DDR5 memory capabilities, security through AMD Infinity Guard, and comparatively better energy efficiency.
The hosting market is highly competitive, and speed to market plays a crucial role. Many hosters aim to be the first to offer the latest hardware, capturing customers before their competitors do. Others differentiate by targeting specific configurations that are underserved in the market.
AMD helps hosters stay ahead in this race by delivering cutting-edge performance and advanced features with rapid availability.
Why AMD EPYC is the Right Choice for Hosters
For hosters looking to balance performance, power efficiency, and cost, AMD is the clear choice. With scalability, performance, and energy efficiency in mind, AMD EPYC CPUs help hosters maximize their revenue while keeping operational costs low. Whether targeting budget-conscious customers or high-performance users, the AMD EPYC processor portfolio ensures that hosters have the right tools to succeed.