r5a.xlarge

Analysis

The r5a.xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5a series with 4 vCPUs and 32 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 $160 a month per instance: $0.1430/hour against $0.3620/hour, a 153% spread.

At $0.2260/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $165 a month, the r5a.xlarge 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 r5n.xlarge on Intel Xeon Platinum 8259 (Cascade Lake) costs 32% more, and the r5.xlarge, the r5ad.xlarge and the r5d.xlarge also sit above it.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.1420/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.0980/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 81% to the bill at $0.4100/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.

It is size 2 of 8 in the r5a series. Stepping up to the r5a.2xlarge gives 8 vCPUs and 64 GiB for $165 more a month. Dropping to the r5a.large saves $82.49 a month.