Geekbench Testing and WebP Encode Speed Comparison of ARM64 Series Chips

这篇文章有简体中文版本，在： ARM64 系列芯片的 Geekbench 测试以及 WebP Encode 速度对比

In the previous article “The performance review of Hetzner’s CAX-line ARM64 servers and the practical experience of WebP Cloud Services on them.,” we compared the performance of ARM64 servers from Hetzner and Oracle. The related article even made it to the top of Hacker News.

In this article, we have decided to compare the performance of more ARM64-based machines to see how each one performs.

This time, we have included the following ARM64 machines for comparison:

• MacBook Pro (M1), owned by Tuki Deng
• MacBook Pro (M1 Pro), owned by Benny Think
• MacBook Pro (M1 Max), owned by Benny Think
• Raspberry Pi 4B, owned by Nova Kwok
• Hetzner CAX11, featuring a virtualized ARM64 processor with 2 cores, 4GB RAM, and an equivalent monthly price of $4.91, referred to as CAX11
• Hetzner CAX21, featuring a virtualized ARM64 processor with 4 cores, 8GB RAM, and an equivalent monthly price of $8.40, referred to as CAX21
• Hetzner CAX31, featuring a virtualized ARM64 processor with 8 cores, 16GB RAM, and an equivalent monthly price of $16.55, referred to as CAX31
• Hetzner CAX41, featuring a virtualized ARM64 processor with 16 cores, 32GB RAM, and an equivalent monthly price of $32.44, referred to as CAX41
• Oracle Cloud, featuring a virtualized ARM64 processor with 4 cores, 32GB RAM, and being part of the Free Tier, its monthly price is $0, referred to as Oracle Cloud
• Aliyun ecs.g8y.xlarge (Alibaba Cloud self-developed Yitian 710 ARM architecture CPU, based on the 4th generation LoongArch), equipped with a virtualized ARM64 processor, 4 cores, and 16GB of memory, priced at 60 USD per month (or 19 USD per month when purchased for 5 years). However, Geekbench results are not available as it is only offered in the domestic region.
• Aliyun ecs.g6r.xlarge (Ampere® Altra®), featuring a virtualized ARM64 processor, 4 cores, and 16GB of memory, priced at 100 USD per month (or 21 USD per month when purchased for 5 years).

Additionally, we have included three AMD64 machines for comparison:

• Hetzner CPX21, featuring a virtualized AMD EPYC 2.4GHz processor with 3 cores, 4GB RAM, and an equivalent monthly price of $9.76, referred to as CPX21
• ThinkPad T14 AMD Gen2 (Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U), owned by Nova Kwok.
• SteamDeck （AMD Custom APU 0405）, owned by Benny Think

Geekbench

We start with the Geekbench scores using Geekbench 6 as the benchmarking tool. Here are the scores:

• Higher scores indicate better performance.

From the above chart, it can be observed that Hetzner CAX series ARM64 machines exhibit very stable single-core performance. However, starting from CAX31, as the price gradually increases, the multi-core scores do not show a linear increase. For example, even though CAX41 has almost twice the number of cores and memory compared to CAX31, its multi-core performance is only 1.46 times better than CAX31.

To further compare Hetzner’s scores, see the chart below:

From this perspective, it seems that if the goal is to expand the workload, using two CAX31 machines would offer better overall performance than a single CAX41 machine.

WebP Encode

Currently, WebP Cloud Services offer two services:

• Public Service
  • It provides reverse proxy for Gravatar and GitHub Avatars, solving two issues:
    • Users from Mainland China cannot directly access Gravatar’s avatar URLs
    • When outputting these images, it provides WebP conversion, which significantly reduces image size without compromising quality, thus accelerating overall site loading speed.
  • This is a public service and completely free. Currently, it has a large number of users, including but not limited to CNX Software, Indienova, and others.
• WebP Cloud
  • This is our new service, and its main features are:
    • It allows users to use WebP Cloud without having to host our open-source component WebP Server Go, making it particularly suitable for static blogs like Hugo, Hexo, etc.
    • By registering an account on WebP Cloud and providing their website address, WebP Cloud will provide a new domain. When users access images on their website using the new domain and their image URLs (URI), WebP Cloud will convert the images into WebP format and output them, significantly reducing image size without compromising quality, thus accelerating overall site loading speed.
    • For example, if your website’s original image URL is https://yyets.dmesg.app/api/user/avatar/BennyThink, WebP Cloud will provide a new URL like https://vz4w427.webp.ee. Now, if you access https://vz4w427.webp.ee/api/user/avatar/BennyThink, you will see the compressed and processed image.
    • All output images are automatically cached in WebP Cloud. This means that after the first access, all subsequent visits will directly use the output from WebP Cloud without going back to the source, reducing traffic and bandwidth pressure on the source server.
  • Free users receive a daily quota of 2000 images, which is sufficient for websites/blogs with moderate traffic. Additionally, paid quotas can be purchased at a low price.
  • Moreover, we support Custom Domain, which means you can use your own domain to output images. For example, two of our users (Keshane’s Simple Blog and STRRL’s backyard) are using their own domains, https://webp.keshane.moe and https://webp.strrl.dev, respectively, to access WebP Cloud.

Among the two services mentioned above, the most critical and resource-intensive part is the WebP conversion (Encode) process. As a service provider, we naturally aim for fast conversion speed and the best cost-effectiveness. The Prefetch feature of WebP Server Go allows easy testing of conversion speed on different machines and, consequently, helps assess machine performance. The test involves a total of 2.4GB of images, with 80% of them being photos taken with a Sony A7, ranging from around 15MiB in size. The remaining 20% consist of smaller images with sizes between 1MiB and 5MiB.

The actual command used for testing is:

./webp-server-go -prefetch

• Shorter processing time indicates better performance.

As we saw in the previous Geekbench results, starting from CAX31, the multi-core scores did not show a linear increase with the rising price. A similar pattern can be observed in the WebP Encode speeds, where the encoding speed of CAX41 did not reach twice that of CAX31, only improving by approximately 1.27 times.

Let’s specifically compare Hetzner’s scores:

From this perspective, if the workload is substantial and requires horizontal scaling, the overall performance of two CAX31 machines will be significantly better than that of a single CAX41 machine, at a similar price. Additionally, having two machines provides added availability. Due to these factors, we have chosen to use CAX31 machines for running all our services at WebP Cloud.

If you find Hetzner’s ARM64 machines interesting after reading this article, you can try registering with Hetzner using our referral link: https://hetzner.cloud/?ref=6moYBzkpMb9s (By using our referral link, you will receive 20EUR credit after successful registration, and we will receive a 10EUR reward, which also supports the development of our products.)

However, please note that Hetzner has strict fraud prevention measures. Using a VPN or intentionally providing false information during registration can easily result in account suspension. This can be both a drawback and an advantage. The drawback is that the registration process might be relatively strict, but the advantage is that Hetzner’s customer base tends to be more “clean” compared to mainstream providers that offer large amounts of credit (such as DigitalOcean, Vultr) and might have noisier neighbors. From our observations, once an account has successfully completed a few paid orders, it is unlikely to encounter issues leading to account closure.