r5a.8xlarge

Analysis

The r5a.8xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5a series with 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory on AMD EPYC 7571 (up to 2.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Running it in Mumbai instead of São Paulo saves $1,279 a month per instance: $1.14/hour against $2.90/hour, a 153% spread.

At $1.81/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $1,320 a month, the r5a.8xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy memory optimized capacity: only 5% of the 385 current memory optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0565.

It is the cheapest of the 5 processor variants AWS sells at this size and generation. The r5b.8xlarge on Intel Xeon Platinum 8259 (Cascade Lake) costs 32% more, and the r5.8xlarge, the r5ad.8xlarge and the r5d.8xlarge also sit above it.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $1.14/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.7810/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 81% to the bill at $3.28/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.

It is size 5 of 8 in the r5a series. Stepping up to the r5a.12xlarge gives 48 vCPUs and 384 GiB for $660 more a month. Dropping to the r5a.4xlarge saves $660 a month.