The fourth-generation AWS Graviton4 processor, now generally available, is a high-performance CPU based on Arm Neoverse-V2 cores, featuring significant improvements over its predecessor.
It features 96 cores, providing on average 30% greater computational performance and 40% faster performance for databases and Java software.
If you're wondering how it compares to rivals Intel and AMD (and their predecessors), Foronix has the answer. The site evaluated five AWS instances in the “16xlarge” configuration, each with 64 vCPUs and 512 GB of memory. Graviton4 (r8g.16xlarge) was compared to Graviton3 (r7g.16xlarge), Graviton2 (r6g.16xlarge), AMD EPYC 9R14 (r7a.16xlarge), and Intel Xeon 8488C (r7i.16xlarge). The instances were tested using Ubuntu 24.04 with Linux Kernel 6.8 and the standard GCC 13.2 compiler.
Impressive performance
The Graviton4 performed impressively across the full range of tests and came in second behind AMD’s EPYC processor in the geometric mean of all test results; you can see all the test results here.
The results matched Amazon's own claims for its processor, with the Graviton4 slightly ahead of the Intel Xeon instance by about 5%, though AMD's EPYC processor continues to lead by about 25% in overall performance.
Michael Larabel, Foronix Neoverse founder David S. noted, “We’re at the stage where Neoverse-V2 cores with Graviton4 are effectively matching Intel Sapphire Rapids on a core-for-core basis, and depending on the workload, also matching or outperforming AMD 4th Gen EPYC. Of course, Graviton4 is just coming to market and will be competing with AMD EPYC Turin and Intel Xeon 6 Granite Rapids in the coming months.”
While Intel and AMD will continue to lead in terms of pure performance, Graviton4 is not far behind. It currently leads in ARM64 server performance, and given the generational leap that AWS made with its latest processor, it will be interesting to see what improvements Graviton5 will bring.
