c6a.32xlarge

Analysis

The c6a.32xlarge is a compute optimized instance in the c6a series with 128 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory on AMD EPYC 7R13 (up to 3.6 GHz), which makes it compute-heavy at 2 GiB of memory per vCPU.

The newer c7a.32xlarge on AMD EPYC 9R14 is 34% dearer at $6.57/hour.

Running it in Mumbai instead of São Paulo saves $3,324 a month per instance: $2.99/hour against $7.55/hour, a 152% spread.

Nothing else with 128 vCPUs and similar memory is cheaper: among 9 current same-shape types it has the lowest on-demand price.

At $4.90/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $3,574 a month, the c6a.32xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy compute optimized capacity: only 8% of the 291 current compute optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0382.

It is the cheapest of the 4 processor variants AWS sells at this size and generation. The c6in.32xlarge on Intel Xeon 8375C (Ice Lake) costs 48% more, and the c6i.32xlarge and the c6id.32xlarge also sit above it.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $3.24/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 66% of the time; three years brings it to $2.16/hour, 56% below on demand. Windows Server roughly doubles the bill at $10.78/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.