A Microsoft representative mentioned in conversation that the Azure IaaS cloud VM provides better bang for buck than Amazon Web Services (AWS) when using your own SQL Server licenses.

What he was stating was that Azure maps a vCPU to a full CORE but AWS typically maps a vCPU to a Hyperthread for its EC2 VMs, so therefore the Azure provides better value. Well not quite.

Note that the high compute offerings from Azure and AWS is a totally different discussion. (i.e. Azure A8, A9 VMs now use an Intel processor – see announcement here).

On face value you would think you would rather have a full CORE than a Hyperthread, however, Azure on their typical VMs use an AMD Opteron 4170/4171 series processor but AWS typically use a more powerful set of Intel Xeon processors.

So the questions are, how do we compare the CPU performance of Azure and AWS VMs and is the AWS Intel Xeon Hyperthread faster that an AMD Opteron 417x Core?

This article (Value of the Cloud – CPU Performance here ) provides the answer, it compares the CPU power between the various Azure and AWS offerings and other cloud providers. It also provides a comparison of cost and performance so that you can compare apples with apples.