c8in.12xlarge

Analysis

The c8in.12xlarge is a compute optimized instance in the c8in series with 48 vCPUs and 96 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Scalable (Granite Rapids) (up to 3.9 GHz), which makes it compute-heavy at 2 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the c8g.12xlarge on AWS Graviton4 costs $1.91/hour, 41% less ($987 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the c8i-flex.12xlarge at $2.14, the c8i.12xlarge at $2.25 and the c8gd.12xlarge at $2.35.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of Sydney saves $728 a month per instance: $3.27/hour against $4.26/hour, a 31% spread. It is not offered in Canada Central, São Paulo, London and Mumbai, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

Per vCPU it is one of the dearer compute optimized types: 92% of the 291 current types in the family cost less than its $0.0680 per vCPU-hour. The premium mostly pays for a newer processor or a specialised configuration. On demand it is $3.27/hour in US East (N. Virginia), or $2,384 for a 730-hour month.

Looking beyond its own line, 27 of 30 current types with 48 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the c6g.12xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $1.63/hour.