1. Architectural & Contractual Comparison Across All Three G12.5 Lines
| Specification | Root Server G12.5 (RS) | VPS G12.5 (x86) | VPS ARM G12.5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU Model & Passthrough | Dedicated AMD EPYC™ 9645 (Turin, Zen 5c) physical cores | Shared AMD EPYC (QEMU/KVM vCores) | Shared ARM64 (aarch64) vCores |
| Hypervisor CPU Scheduling | Dedicated core allocation; 24/7 100% load allowed (%st = 0.0%) | Multi-tenant CFS fair-share; sustained 100% load throttled | Multi-tenant shared scheduling |
| Memory Subsystem | DDR5 ECC (high memory bandwidth) | ECC RAM | ECC RAM |
| Storage Subsystem | Enterprise NVMe SSD (Hardware RAID) | SSD storage (IOPS-capped) | NVMe SSD |
| Network Interface | 2.5 Gbit/s (virtio-net multiqueue) | 2.5 Gbit/s (virtio-net) | 2.5 Gbit/s (virtio-net) |
| 24h Rolling Traffic Shaping | > 3 TB in 24h → shaped to 300 Mbit/s | avg. > 2 TB in 24h → shaped to 200 Mbit/s | avg. > 2 TB in 24h → 200 Mbit/s |
| Continuous Unthrottled Equivalent | Sustained 277.8 Mbit/s 24/7 without triggering shaping | Sustained 185.2 Mbit/s 24/7 without triggering shaping | 185.2 Mbit/s sustained average |
| Annual Availability SLA | 99.9% contractually guaranteed | None (99.6% general DC average) | None |
| 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee | Yes (first-time orders) | No | No |
| Selectable Fixed Data Centers | NUE, VIE, MNS, SIN (+ EU free) | NUE, VIE, AMS, MNS, SIN (+ EU free) | NUE, VIE, AMS (+ EU free) |
| Checkout Voucher Support | Up to 2 free months / €4.20 net (€5 gross) | 1 free month / €4.20 net (€5 gross) | Excluded from vouchers |
Sources: netcup Root Server and netcup VPS.
2. Why Is a KVM Virtual Machine Called a “Root Server”?
First-time international buyers often wonder whether a netcup “Root Server” is a bare-metal dedicated server. Both netcup Root Servers and VPS run on QEMU/KVM virtualization, but with fundamentally different host resource guarantees:
- CPU Pinning &
lscpuVisibility: Inside a Root Server G12.5,/proc/cpuinfoexposes the physicalAMD EPYC 9645 48-Core Processorand the hypervisor reserves 1:1 physical compute time for your allocated cores. Even under multi-hourstress-ng --cpu 4compilation runs, CPU steal time (%stintop/vmstat 1) remains at 0.0%. On a VPS G12.5, vCores draw from an oversubscribed shared pool — burst performance is fast, but pegging all vCores at 100% for hours triggers host cgroup fairness throttling. - NVMe Queue Depth &
fsyncLatency: Root Servers sit on enterprise NVMe RAID arrays sustaining 72k–186k 4k random IOPS, whereas x86 VPS storage is throttled for general web workloads.
3. Published YABS Benchmarks: Day-1 Empty Node vs. 30-Day Full Host Node
Independent YABS (Geekbench 6 + fio) results published on m-hofmann.dev and vpsceping.org track both day-1 provisioning bursts and steady-state performance after 15–30 days:
| Plan | Data center | Test date | Geekbench 6 (1C / Multi) | fio 4k mixed R/W | fio 64k mixed R/W | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RS 1000 G12 (4c / 8 GB) Fresh deploy | Vienna (AT) | 2025-09-11 | 2290 / 7559 ↗ | 749.2 MB/s (187.3k IOPS) | 4.13 GB/s (64.6k IOPS) | vpsceping.org ↗ |
| RS 1000 G12 (4c / 8 GB) Fresh deploy | Vienna (AT) | 2025-09-10 | 2205 / 7071 ↗ | 672.2 MB/s (168.0k IOPS) | 3.79 GB/s (59.2k IOPS) | m-hofmann.dev ↗ |
| RS 1000 G12 (4c / 8 GB) After ~1 month | Nuremberg (DE) | 2025-10-06 | 1619 / 5156 ↗ | 545.8 MB/s (136.4k IOPS) | 2.47 GB/s (38.6k IOPS) | m-hofmann.dev ↗ |
| RS 2000 G12 Pro (8c / 16 GB) Fresh deploy | Vienna (AT) | 2025-11-25 | 2146 / 10817 ↗ | 395.3 MB/s (98.8k IOPS) | 2.41 GB/s (37.7k IOPS) | m-hofmann.dev ↗ |
| RS 2000 G12 Pro (8c / 16 GB) After 15 days uptime | Vienna (AT) | 2025-12-12 | 1767 / 7947 ↗ | 290.6 MB/s (72.6k IOPS) | 1.76 GB/s (27.5k IOPS) | m-hofmann.dev ↗ |
What Each YABS fio Block Size Means for Real Workloads
| fio Block Size | RS 1000 G12 Measured Range (30-Day Steady State) | Real-World Production Workload Impact |
|---|---|---|
| 4k Random R/W (50/50) | 290.6 MB/s (72.6k IOPS); Day-1 burst up to 395.3 MB/s (98.8k IOPS) | Governs PostgreSQL / MySQL / MariaDB transaction commits (fsync), Redis AOF persistence, and small-file metadata operations. 72k+ IOPS handles thousands of ACID writes per second. |
| 64k Random R/W (50/50) | 2.08 GB/s (32.6k IOPS); Day-1 burst up to 2.26 GB/s (35.4k IOPS) | Governs Docker image layer extraction, Rust/C++ compilation, Git clone/fetch and concurrent web asset serving. |
| 512k / 1M Sequential | 3.10 – 4.80 GB/s | Governs .raw.zst full-disk snapshot exports, video transcoding pipelines and large pg_dump backups. |
4. Price Comparison by Tier (24-Month Contract Term · 0% VAT (excl. tax))
| Tier & Specs | Root Server (24M) (0% VAT) | VPS (24M) (0% VAT) | RS Monthly Delta (0% VAT) | RS Voucher / VPS Voucher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 cores · 4 GB · 64 GB | €9.24 | €5.91 | +€3.33/mo (+56%) | €4.20 net off (0% VAT) / €4.20 net off (0% VAT) |
| 4 cores · 8 GB · 128 GB | €15.52 | €10.35 | +€5.17/mo (+50%) | 2 months free / 1 month free |
| 8 cores · 16 GB · 256 GB | €29.08 | €19.24 | +€9.84/mo (+51%) | 1 month free / 1 month free |
| 12 cores · 32 GB · 512 GB | €55.60 | €32.40 | +€23.20/mo (+72%) | €4.20 net off (0% VAT) / 1 month free |
| 16 cores · 64 GB · 1 TB | €106.02 | €47.93 | +€58.09/mo (+121%) | 1 month free / 1 month free |
5. Workload Selection Guide
Choose Root Server G12.5 if you run…
- Production Databases & Search Engines: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, ClickHouse, Elasticsearch or Meilisearch requiring 70k+ 4k IOPS and DDR5 bandwidth
- Dense Multi-Container Stacks (10+ Containers): Mailcow with ClamAV, Nextcloud + Immich ML facial recognition, GitLab CE + CI/CD build runners
- SLA-Backed Services: Workloads needing the 99.9% annual availability SLA or the 30-day money-back satisfaction guarantee on first order
Choose VPS G12.5 if you run…
- Web Servers, Blogs & Reverse Proxies: WordPress, Ghost, Caddy/Nginx ingress, Uptime Kuma monitoring, WireGuard VPN or low-duty APIs (<30% average CPU)
- Amsterdam-Pinned Workloads: Only VPS G12.5 allows pinning Amsterdam (NL) as a fixed data center location
- Cost-Optimized Staging Nodes: Saves 33%–55% per month at the same RAM and disk capacity
6. Active Root Server & VPS Vouchers
RS 1000 G12.5
- 4 dedicated cores
- 8 GB RAM
- 128 GB NVMe
- 2.5 Gbit/s
2 months free
Worth €36.52(2 × €18.26 · 12-month rate, 0% VAT (excl. tax))
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
RS 2000 G12.5
- 8 dedicated cores
- 16 GB RAM
- 256 GB NVMe
- 2.5 Gbit/s
1 month free
Worth €34.20(1 × €34.20 · 12-month rate, 0% VAT (excl. tax))
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
€4.20 net off (0% VAT)
Worth €4.20(one-time cart deduction at 0% VAT (excl. tax); €5.00 face value incl. 19% DE VAT)
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
RS 8000 G12.5
- 16 dedicated cores
- 64 GB RAM
- 1 TB NVMe
- 2.5 Gbit/s
1 month free
Worth €124.72(1 × €124.72 · 12-month rate, 0% VAT (excl. tax))
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.
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Product codes are single-use. If netcup reports the code as already redeemed, use the next one.