Xeon dedicated server: three Xeon 6 options
If you want a Xeon dedicated server with modern cores, ECC registered memory and room to grow, we offer three options on Intel's Xeon 6 platform, known as Granite Rapids: the Xeon Gold 6731P with 32 cores, the Dell Xeon 6741P with 48 cores and the Dell Xeon 6787P with 86 cores. This guide compares them on price, cores and memory, and explains why software licensed per core can change which one is cheapest for you.
Our Xeon 6 dedicated servers at a glance
| Plan | Cores / threads | Memory | Storage | Location | Price | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xeon Gold 6731P | 32c/64t | 128 GB DDR5 ECC Reg (up to 256 GB) | 2 × 1.92 TB NVMe DC (up to 4 × 7.68 TB) | Falkenstein | $839/mo | $339 |
| Dell Xeon 6741P | 48c/96t | 128 GB DDR5 ECC Reg (up to 256 GB) | 2 × 960 GB NVMe DC (up to 4 × 1.92 TB) | Nuremberg | $1,059/mo | $419 |
| Dell Xeon 6787P | 86c/172t | 256 GB DDR5 ECC Reg (up to 512 GB) | 2 × 960 GB NVMe DC (up to 4 × 1.92 TB) | Nuremberg | $1,379/mo | $559 |
All three come with an unmetered 1 Gbit/s port, DDoS protection, one IPv4 address and a /64 IPv6 block, full root or administrator access and monthly billing with no contract. A 10 Gbit/s uplink is available on request for selected servers in this range.
What Granite Rapids brings to a Xeon dedicated server
Xeon 6 with P-cores is Intel's current server platform for performance-focused workloads. Compared with older Xeon generations still common in the rental market, you get DDR5 memory instead of DDR4, more cores per socket and PCIe 5.0 for fast NVMe storage and networking. Like Xeon generations since Sapphire Rapids, it also includes AMX, a set of matrix instructions that frameworks such as PyTorch can use to speed up AI inference on the CPU.
Every core on these chips is a full performance core with Hyper-Threading, so each one runs two threads. That is different from Intel's desktop parts with hybrid P-cores and E-cores, and it makes capacity planning simpler for virtualisation: every vCPU you hand out maps to the same kind of hardware thread.
Comparing the three servers
Xeon Gold 6731P: the entry point
The Xeon Gold 6731P is the cheapest of the three at $839 a month and the only one in our Falkenstein datacenter. It has 32 cores and 64 threads, 128 GB of registered ECC memory that can be raised to 256 GB, and two 1.92 TB datacenter NVMe drives with space for up to four 7.68 TB drives. That storage ceiling is the highest in the Xeon range, so it suits database servers and file-heavy applications that need fast local disk more than extreme core counts.
Dell Xeon 6741P: more cores plus Dell management
The Dell Xeon 6741P moves to 48 cores and 96 threads for $1,059 a month. As part of our Dell PowerEdge line it includes iDRAC Enterprise for remote console and virtual media, hot-swap drives and redundant titanium power supplies. It is a strong virtualisation host for teams who want out-of-band access.
Dell Xeon 6787P: maximum density
The Dell Xeon 6787P has 86 cores and 172 threads, the most of any server we sell, plus 256 GB of registered ECC memory as standard with room for 512 GB. It is built for consolidation: dozens of virtual machines, large container clusters, big build farms or heavily parallel data processing on one machine.
Price per core
Dividing the monthly price by the core count gives a useful first comparison for thread-bound work:
| Plan | Cores | Monthly price | Price per core | First year incl. setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xeon Gold 6731P | 32 | $839 | about $26.22 | $10,407 |
| Dell Xeon 6741P | 48 | $1,059 | about $22.06 | $13,127 |
| Dell Xeon 6787P | 86 | $1,379 | about $16.03 | $17,107 |
The bigger the server, the cheaper each core. If your workload scales across many threads and you would otherwise rent two or three smaller machines, the 6787P is often the cheaper way to buy compute.
The per-core licensing angle
Hardware price per core is only half the picture. A lot of commercial software is licensed per physical core, and on a large server the licence can cost more than the hardware.
- Windows Server. Windows Server Standard is licensed per core, with a minimum of 16 core licences per server. A 32-core server needs twice as many core licences as a 16-core one, and an 86-core server far more. Our Windows Server 2025 Standard licence add-on starts at $39 a month; ask us for the exact price on the plan you want. Our Windows dedicated server guide explains the licensing model in more detail.
- Database engines. Commercial databases such as Microsoft SQL Server are commonly licensed per core as well. Running one on 86 cores when it only needs 16 is an expensive mistake.
- Open-source stacks. PostgreSQL, MySQL, Proxmox VE, Docker and most Linux software carry no per-core fee, so the cheapest hardware per core is simply the cheapest option.
The practical rule: if your main software is licensed per core, buy the fewest, fastest cores that meet your needs. A smaller chip such as the Core Ultra 7 265 with 20 cores and up to 5.3 GHz, or the 32-core Xeon Gold 6731P, can be cheaper in total than a larger server once per-core licences are counted. If your software is free, pack as many cores into one machine as you can use. See our Windows dedicated server page for the Windows options.
Xeon or EPYC?
For the 48-core tier we also offer the AMD EPYC 9454P as a standard server for $929 a month or as a Dell PowerEdge for $1,089. It supports up to 512 GB of memory, against 256 GB on the Dell Xeon 6741P, which matters for memory-hungry virtualisation hosts and databases. Pick Xeon if your software is tuned for Intel, you want AMX for CPU inference, or you need the 86-core option. Our broader AMD vs Intel comparison covers the trade-offs.
Browse the full range on our Intel dedicated servers page, or contact us for memory or storage upgrades.
