r5.12xlarge

Analysis

The r5.12xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5 series with 48 vCPUs and 384 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Platinum 8175 (up to 3.1 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the r5a.12xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $2.71/hour, 10% less ($228 a month). The other variants are the r5ad.12xlarge at $3.14, the r5d.12xlarge at $3.46 and the r5n.12xlarge at $3.58.

At $3.02/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $2,208 a month, the r5.12xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy memory optimized capacity: only 16% of the 385 current memory optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0630.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $1,314 a month per instance: $3.02/hour against $4.82/hour, a 60% spread.

Looking beyond its own line, 6 of 40 current types with 48 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.12xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $2.42/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $1.91/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $1.31/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 73% to the bill at $5.23/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.