Re: For procurement...
"Ok, look at this:
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-offers-enterprise-meltdown-spectre-benchmarks-gift-amd/"
Your quoted page largely supports my argument.
"Still, if the Intel Xeon Platinum was 27% faster pre-patch, we would expect it to be no faster than 22% faster now."
"The one we really want to see the results of is the “Storage bound workload” for the NoSQL database. Intel claimed a 27% lead over AMD EPYC but it is showing that some storage bound workloads using fio can see a 22% decrease. If Intel had a 22% decrease there, it would actually push Intel below AMD EPYC on that benchmark."
So... Intel generally likely to remain significantly better on generic workloads at high-end, but some risk of AMD taking a lead in intensive DB ops. As in, exactly what I proposed in my initial post.
So yeah, I generally wouldn't be looking at AMD in the server room - yet. Epyc is OK when there's a major budget constraints - for SMBs looking to run a lot of stuff on one box, say - but as you move up into serious enterprise kit and you can spend serious money, AMD still aren't competitive. But it's really not far off, and the performance loss Intel have suffered from Meltdown really does mean AMD could feasibly overtake again for a generation or two in the near future.
Then Intel will just do what they did in the late 1980s and the early 2000s and hurl so much money at the problem that they leave AMD in the dust again. Same thing happens every 15 years or so.