> That shouldn't be a problem. They are both fundamentally the same architecture (amd64) and any CPU-specific features are already opportunistically handled by the vast majority of software because otherwise you wouldn't be able to run the same code on different versions of Intel's CPUs.

A very long time ago, I worked for a then very large company that sold servers. Plain standard 80486 based servers.

My job was to drive around and drop off these servers for evaluation at prospective customers, who would compare them against 80486 offerings from a different vendor.

Your argument about them all being fundamentally the same would be even stronger: it’s the same CPU.

And yet, customers did not take chances and would go through the eval motions. Because their business relied on it.

Now imagine that at a scale of thousands.

Claiming “they are fundamentally the same” is not wrong, but you don’t care about the fundamentals only. You care about the whole picture and you don’t take chances.