hpc6a.48xlarge

Analysis

The hpc6a.48xlarge is a compute optimized instance in the hpc6a series with 96 vCPUs and 384 GiB of memory on AMD EPYC 7R13 (up to 2.95 GHz), which makes it balanced at 4 GiB of memory per vCPU.

The newer hpc7a.48xlarge on AMD EPYC 9R14 is 150% dearer at $7.20/hour.

Running it in Ohio instead of Sydney saves $643 a month per instance: $2.88/hour against $3.76/hour, a 31% spread. It is not offered in N. Virginia, Oregon, Canada Central, São Paulo, Ireland, London, Frankfurt, Mumbai and Tokyo, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

Nothing else with 96 vCPUs and similar memory is cheaper: among 28 current same-shape types it has the lowest on-demand price.

At $2.88/hour on demand in its cheapest tracked region, about $2,102 a month, the hpc6a.48xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy compute optimized capacity: only 1% of the 291 current compute optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0300.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $2.27/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 79% of the time; three years brings it to $1.56/hour, 46% below on demand. Windows Server roughly doubles the bill at $7.30/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.