i4i.24xlarge

Analysis

The i4i.24xlarge is a storage optimized instance in the i4i series with 96 vCPUs and 768 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon 8375C (Ice Lake) (up to 3.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $3,585 a month per instance: $8.24/hour against $13.15/hour, a 60% spread.

On demand it costs $8.24/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $6,013 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for storage optimized types at the 28th percentile per vCPU ($0.0858 per vCPU-hour) and the 24th percentile per GiB ($0.0107 per GiB-hour).

It has local instance storage (6 x 3750 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: 56250 Megabit.

Looking beyond its own line, 20 of 35 current types with 96 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r5a.24xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 at $5.42/hour.

It is size 8 of 9 in the i4i series. Stepping up to the i4i.32xlarge gives 128 vCPUs and 1024 GiB for $2,004 more a month. Dropping to the i4i.16xlarge saves $2,004 a month.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $5.34/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 65% of the time; three years brings it to $3.81/hour, 54% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 54% to the bill at $12.65/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.