i4i.32xlarge

Analysis

The i4i.32xlarge is a storage optimized instance in the i4i series with 128 vCPUs and 1024 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 $4,779 a month per instance: $10.98/hour against $17.53/hour, a 60% spread.

On demand it costs $10.98/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $8,017 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 (8 x 3750 GB SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: 75000 Megabit.

Looking beyond its own line, 6 of 14 current types with 128 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6a.32xlarge on AMD EPYC 7R13 at $7.26/hour.

It is the largest of the 9 i4i sizes. Dropping to the i4i.24xlarge saves $2,004 a month.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $7.13/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 65% of the time; three years brings it to $5.08/hour, 54% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 54% to the bill at $16.87/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.