c5n.xlarge

Analysis

The c5n.xlarge is a compute optimized instance in the c5n series with 4 vCPUs and 10.5 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Platinum 8124M (up to 3 GHz), which makes it balanced at 2.62 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the c5a.xlarge on AMD EPYC 7R32 costs $0.1540/hour, 29% less ($45.26 a month). The other variants are the c5.xlarge at $0.1700, the c5ad.xlarge at $0.1720 and the c5d.xlarge at $0.1920.

Running it in Mumbai instead of São Paulo saves $84.68 a month per instance: $0.2160/hour against $0.3320/hour, a 54% spread.

On demand it costs $0.2160/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $158 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for compute optimized types at the 71st percentile per vCPU ($0.0540 per vCPU-hour) and the 22nd percentile per GiB ($0.0206 per GiB-hour).

Looking beyond its own line, 22 of 31 current types with 4 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the c6g.xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $0.1360/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.1360/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.0780/hour, 64% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 85% to the bill at $0.4000/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.