AmpereOne — the most affordable server ARM. Better than AMD and Intel?

Ampere: pioneer in the server ARM market

Ampere, having been opened in the not-so-distant 2017, made a significant breakthrough in the server processor market by creating consumer LGA ARM chips for servers. This is a unique achievement that has effectively transferred the user experience of Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC to the ARM architecture. Now customers can easily change processors, RAM, and other components, as in traditional x86 systems, but with all the advantages of the ARM architecture.

Ampere's success story began with the release of the Altra line. These processors, equipped with Neoverse N1 and N2 cores running at up to 3 GHz, showed impressive results. However, the company did not stop there. The new AmpereOne line became a logical and powerful continuation of the already well-established Ampere Altra, offering significant improvements and innovations.

AmpereOne: a new player in the server processor market

AmpereOne is positioned as a direct and worthy competitor to industry giants such as Intel Xeon 6th generation and AMD EPYC 9004 (and possibly the future 9005 on the Turin architecture). And you know what? They can really give these fossilized x86 dinosaurs a run for their money.
The processor is manufactured using advanced 5-nanometer process technology. This allows for an optimal balance between performance and energy efficiency.
Importantly, starting with AmpereOne, the core architecture has changed. If previously Ampere used licensed Arm Neoverse cores, now under the Arm architecture license, they have developed their own core design called Siryn.

Since Ampere Computing places special emphasis on the fact that their processors are extremely efficient in AI-related tasks, it is worth noting that their architecture includes vector blocks, in the case of AmpereOne – 2 blocks of 128 bits, which are used for tasks that are well parallelized across multiple threads, typically operations involving linear algebra (FP16, Bfloat16, Int8, Int16). In simpler terms, this greatly helps in AI and neural network tasks.

AmpereOne supports DDR5 memory with scalability up to 12 channels. This provides high bandwidth and low latency when working with memory, which is critically important for many server applications. In addition, the processor is equipped with a PCIe Gen5 interface, which offers significantly increased bandwidth compared to previous generations.

But the main advantage of AmpereOne is the number of cores. AmpereOne is available in a version with 192 computing cores. Yes, you heard right — one hundred and ninety-two cores in one processor. And this is not the limit: the company plans to expand the CPU lineup to 256 cores in the future. For comparison, the top model AMD EPYC 9754 offers 128 cores, and Intel Xeon 6780E — 144 cores.

New socket LGA5964 — a step towards unification and flexibility

The new LGA5964 socket, developed for the updated AmpereOne lineup, is a logical continuation of the previous LGA4926. Although the basic principles remain the same, the new socket offers a number of improvements. First of all, it provides compatibility with more powerful AmpereOne processors, while maintaining continuity in terms of ease of maintenance and upgrades. As before, users can easily upgrade their server systems by changing processors without replacing the entire motherboard. This not only supports the flexibility of AmpereOne systems but also protects customer investments, ensuring long-term development prospects for their infrastructure in line with growing business needs.

The LGA5964 socket expands scalability options. While the compatibility principle has been preserved from the previous generation, the new socket supports a wider range of processors, including future models with increased performance. This allows companies to start with basic configurations and gradually scale up, adapting to growing business needs without a complete equipment replacement.

The unified socket also simplifies the management of the server equipment fleet. IT administrators can more effectively plan upgrades and allocate resources by dealing with a single platform. And believe me, this can save a lot of gray hairs for system administrators and DevOps engineers.

Energy Efficiency — The Key Advantage of AmpereOne

Now let's talk about what really sets AmpereOne apart from the competition — its exceptional energy efficiency. According to Ampere Computing, AmpereOne processors are 50% more efficient than EPYC Genoa in terms of performance per watt. Yes, you read that right — by a whole 50%!

When comparing AmpereOne with flagship models like AMD EPYC Bergamo or Genoa, the new product from Ampere offers up to 34% better utilization of computing power per rack. And most importantly, these impressive results are achieved not by increasing power consumption, but through more efficient architecture and optimization for specific cloud computing tasks.

What does this mean in practice? This is a significant reduction in electricity costs. For large data centers, this can translate into millions of dollars in savings annually. Lower heat dissipation allows for reduced cooling system costs for data centers, which cannot operate without air conditioning systems. Considering that cooling can account for up to 40% of a data center's total energy consumption, this is a very substantial saving. Interestingly, AmpereOne processors do not have a heat spreader, which is more typical for GPUs, and also simplifies cooling the processor die.

More efficient use of energy allows for increased server density. The fewer servers required to perform a task, the higher their density. This is especially important in the limited space of data centers, particularly in large cities where every square meter is worth its weight in gold.

Collaboration with Oracle and Qualcomm

An important aspect of AmpereOne's success is the strategic partnership of Ampere with major players in the technology market. Here, Ampere's close ties with Oracle, one of the leaders in cloud technology and databases, deserve special attention.

Oracle is not just showing interest in Ampere's solutions — the company is actively implementing AmpereOne processors into its infrastructure. This is a serious confirmation of the efficiency and reliability of these processors in real-world operating conditions. The use of AmpereOne in Oracle's cloud services demonstrates that these processors are capable of handling the high loads and complex tasks characteristic of modern cloud applications.

The partnership with Oracle also opens up access to a huge base of corporate clients for Ampere. This can significantly accelerate the spread of ARM processors in the corporate segment. In turn, this can become a catalyst for the further development of the software ecosystem for ARM architecture in the server segment.

No less interesting is Ampere's strategic alliance with Qualcomm. This collaboration opens up new prospects for the development of energy-efficient server solutions in AI-related tasks.
Tests showed that the 128-core Ampere Altra is not inferior in performance to a Xeon-based server with an NVIDIA Tesla A10 accelerator when running the large language model LLaMA 3. At the same time, the Ampere solution consumes only a third of the energy required by the competitor. Moreover, a ready-made server with Ampere Altra Max costs about 4300€, while a single NVIDIA A10 alone costs around 3500€. Thus, the Ampere solution turns out to be not only more energy-efficient but also allows saving up to 30% of the budget with comparable performance.

Accessibility for a Wide Audience: Democratization of Server Technologies

Now let's talk about what really sets Ampere apart from its competitors — the accessibility of their solutions for a wide audience. Unlike the traditionally expensive server solutions from Intel and AMD, Ampere strives to make their technologies accessible not only to large corporations with deep pockets but also to small and medium-sized businesses, as well as PC users who have decided to move away from the usual x86.

But the most interesting thing is how far progress has gone in this direction. Now enthusiasts and small companies can purchase a MATX format motherboard and assemble a server system based on AmpereOne. Yes, you heard it right — a real ARM server in a desktop case that will easily fit under your desk. This opens up completely new opportunities for experiments and innovations.

Ampere opens access to high-performance computing for companies of any scale. The more processor cores you have, the more services, microservices, virtual machines, and containers you can run. And the lower the price per core and overall performance, the more servers you can afford for your data center. Compare for yourself: 128 Ampere cores will cost a startup or small company only ~4300€ for a ready-made server. But 128 Intel Xeon 6756E cores cost ~7600€ just for the processor. And this is not counting the traditionally high prices for Intel motherboards. Plus, savings on electricity: 190W for Ampere One versus 225W for Intel. The choice is obvious, isn't it?

By the way, pay attention to the maximum frequency of Ampere One, unfortunately, the base frequency and specifically for the 128-core model is not even indicated on the Ampere Computing website. Not to mention the mess they have with the TDP table. But so far, it seems that Ampere One CPUs are good not only in multi-threading but also in single-core performance, which means that 1C should hurry to port their products natively to ARM, with such frequencies everything will definitely fly.

The availability of AmpereOne contributes to the spread of ARM architecture in the server segment. In the long term, this can lead to greater market diversity and stimulate competition. And competition, as we know, is the engine of progress. Perhaps this will finally make Intel and AMD shake up and start offering something truly innovative, rather than another "revolutionary" processor with a 5% performance increase and a 20% increase in power consumption.

Imagine a small DevOps team that can deploy a full-fledged ARM server cluster right in the office for testing and development. Or a startup that can afford a powerful computing infrastructure without the need to rent a rack in a data center.

Can AmpereOne really compete with x86?

Now let's talk about the most interesting thing — performance. Can an ARM processor really compete with x86 in the server segment? Spoiler: yes, it can, and how.

According to SPECint_base 2017 tests, AmpereOne processors show impressive results. In some scenarios, they show performance at the level or even higher than the top models of AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon. And this is with significantly lower power consumption.

But the most interesting thing begins when we look at specific workloads typical for cloud computing. Here AmpereOne often stands head and shoulders above the competition. This is especially noticeable in tasks related to processing large amounts of data, machine learning, and containerization.

For example, in tests using software used in storage systems and databases, AmpereOne shows performance at the level or even higher than that of x86 processors, with significantly lower power consumption.

Of course, there are certain scenarios where x86 processors still have an advantage. For example, in some high-load single-threaded applications, Intel and AMD can show better results. But let's be honest — how many such applications are there in modern cloud environments? Most modern workloads scale perfectly across many cores, and here AmpereOne feels like a fish in water.

Is everything ready for a mass transition to ARM?

One of the main questions when considering a transition to ARM architecture has always been software compatibility. And here Ampere has a few aces up its sleeve.

In recent years, we have seen an impressive growth in support for ARM architecture in server software. Linux, which dominates the server segment, has long worked perfectly on ARM processors. It was joined by Windows Server 2025, finally adding support for ARM, albeit with some caveats, as is usually the case with Microsoft. As for tools for developing, deploying, and managing applications, giants like Docker, Kubernetes, and Jenkins are fully compatible with ARM. In the field of virtualization, VMware, with its entire product line, has supported ARM for quite some time, as has Proxmox. In fact, most open-source software available under Linux traditionally works well on ARM architecture.
Looking at this picture, one involuntarily wonders: does this all look like a large-scale industry preparation for a transition to ARM? After all, almost all key server software developers, from giants like Microsoft to small open-source projects, are actively investing in ARM support. It seems that the industry is seriously preparing for significant changes in server system architecture.

Cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and of course Oracle, are actively promoting ARM solutions. This means that more and more developers are optimizing their software to run on ARM processors.
Virtualization and containerization technologies significantly simplify the process of migrating applications between different architectures. Many applications can simply be recompiled for ARM without the need to change the source code.

Conclusion

So, what do we have in the dry residue? AmpereOne is not just another server processor, but a potential turning point in the development of server technologies. The combination of high performance, exceptional energy efficiency, and affordability makes these processors an attractive choice for a wide range of applications — from large cloud data centers to compact server solutions for small businesses.

Of course, Ampere still faces certain challenges. It is necessary to continue working on performance optimization, expanding the ecosystem of compatible software, and convincing conservative corporate clients of the advantages of ARM architecture. But judging by what we see now, the company has every chance of success and a significant share in the server market.

If your company is already using servers with Ampere processors, it would be extremely interesting to hear about your impressions and difficulties you may have encountered. Your experience can be very valuable for those who are only considering switching to ARM architecture in the server segment. What advantages have you noticed? What problems did you encounter during the migration? How did ARM servers perform under real workloads? We look forward to your opinion in the comments!