Intel Xeon Ice Lake vs. AMD EPYC Milan Server Performance, Efficiency & Value In 2023
With the LuxCoreRender open-source software for CPU-based rendering performance, the AMD EPYC Milan processors delivered strong performance against the Intel Ice Lake processors available for testing.
Not only was EPYC delivering the fastest render times but also translated to the best value with the AMD EPYC servers tested.
LuxCoreRender was also enjoying the best performance-per-Watt on AMD EPYC.
When running Embree as an Intel open-source renderer, the Xeon Gold processors came out ahead due to leveraging AVX-512. (Yes, with newer AMD 4th Gen EPYC is AVX-512 now too.)
With Embree well optimized for AVX-512, its strong performance was competitive in delivering the best value for this particular workload.
But where AMD jumped ahead was again in delivering the best power efficiency.
OSPray Studio is another great open-source Intel software project and it is designed to make maximum use of AVX-512. Even with EPYC Milan lacking AVX-512, it wasn't too far behind Ice Lake. As shown in my Genoa and Sapphire Rapids reviews, the OSPray Studio performance is much more interesting with those newer processors.
The AMD EPYC processors tested were delivering comparatively better performance than the Ice Lake SKUs when running the Blender 3D modeling software.
Needless to say, for those evaluating servers for Blender render purposes, AMD EPYC was also delivering the best power efficiency and value.