Ampere CPU
Shares rank 5 of 8 server CPUs by recommenders
People recommend Ampere's Arm processors for dense server capacity, cheap cloud cores and Linux desktop use. Critics say performance trails AMD and Epyc chips at a similar price.
People recommend Ampere's Arm processors for dense server capacity, cheap cloud cores and Linux desktop use. Critics say performance trails AMD and Epyc chips at a similar price.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 57%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Dense, affordable server capacity
“Ampere processors natively support both 32 & 64 bit Android applications and require no binary translation for maximum instance density”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Is it time for a new Embedded Linux build system?” “80 cores for $400 a month seems pretty good”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs” Runs Linux on desktop hardware
“Snapdragon laptops, Ampere desktops, or even a Raspberry Pi with an RTX 5090 if you wanted.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 6.19” “like some other Arm chip companies (e.g. Ampere) you could boot a generic Linux”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 series”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lags behind AMD in performance
“their latest CPUs (which do not impress much) use a custom core”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “ARM AGI CPU: Specs and SKUs” “Epyc class of price with not an Epyc class of performance”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Minisforum Stuffs Entire Arm Homelab in the MS-R1” “Unfortunately Ampere has fallen pretty far behind AMD.”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “CES 2026: Taking the Lids Off AMD's Venice and MI400 SoCs”
Other server CPUs people recommend
The four most recommended other server CPUs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMD EPYC | 26 | 3 | 90% | 11 | — | Approved |
| AWS Graviton | 16 | 7 | 70% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Intel Xeon | 14 | 11 | 56% | 4 | 15 yrs3 owners | — |
| Nvidia Vera CPU | 11 | 7 | 61% | 6 | — | — |
| Ampere CPUThis page | 8 | 6 | 57% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“like some other Arm chip companies (e.g. Ampere) you could boot a generic Linux”
“There is a LOT of demand for 5+ year old Ampere on the secondary market”
“where Ampere and Graviton was different from the M1 mac in benchmark”
“this seems to be more advanced though”
“the Ampere server that Marcin is using is about 6 years old”
“If you think running a Linux desktop on an Ampere is bad”
“80 cores for $400 a month seems pretty good”
“Ampere processors natively support both 32 & 64 bit Android applications and require no binary translation for maximum instance density”
“their latest CPUs (which do not impress much) use a custom core”
“Snapdragon laptops, Ampere desktops, or even a Raspberry Pi with an RTX 5090 if you wanted.”
“Unfortunately Ampere has fallen pretty far behind AMD.”
“this particular one has a run time of 20 minutes (and a charge time of 10 minutes)”
“Epyc class of price with not an Epyc class of performance”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.