AMD Ryzen vs Intel Core i7

[Avail_Andy]

Hey guys,

I build custom computers and have a client who wants the best computer for running many VMware virtual machines simultaneously.

We're looking at either building a Core i7-7700K 4-core/8 thread, or Ryzen 8-core/16 thread based system.  32 GB DDR4.  Separate enterprise class hard drives so reading/writing to disk isn't all shared on the same drive thus causing a bottleneck.

I understand more cores and threads are better.  So then, does the latest version of VMware favor the Ryzen over the Core i7?

Is VMware's support for Intel's CPU virtualization technology more mature than AMD's?

Can anyone give testimonies of how hard they push VM'ing with either before they slow down?

I'd kind of like the scale to tip in one direction or the other.

Thanks!!

Andy

[wila]

Hello Andy,

Unfortunately I'm afraid that there is no easy answer for your question at this moment.

If you search the forums then you'll find that there's a number of people having some problems with their Ryzen based machine.

This is not unique to virtualisation, you'll also find issues about Ryzen in other areas, like how it works together with graphics cards.

Ryzen's poor performance with Nvidia GPU's. Foul play? Did Nvidia know? - AnandTech Forums

This is due to a number of things, like CPU problems in the first batch that still need errata to fix it, perhaps even NVidia needing to adjust their drivers there.

Then VMware is probably still working on specific details needed for Ryzen to work optimal.

So if I was asked this question then I'd say it depends on the timeline needed by the customer.

Short term, I personally would stick to Intel.

Longer term, AMD Ryzen might be a better choice, depending on how the fixes on the current issues work out. I expect it all to work out well and that Ryzen becomes the real power horse it promises to be, but ... for the moment I would not yet advise it to customers needing it on short term.

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Wil