r5d.12xlarge

Analysis

The r5d.12xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5d 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, 22% less ($543 a month). The other variants are the r5.12xlarge at $3.02, the r5ad.12xlarge at $3.14 and the r5n.12xlarge at $3.58.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $1,472 a month per instance: $3.46/hour against $5.47/hour, a 58% spread.

On demand it costs $3.46/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $2,523 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for memory optimized types at the 34th percentile per vCPU ($0.0720 per vCPU-hour) and the 50th percentile per GiB ($0.00900 per GiB-hour).

It has local instance storage (2 x 900 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: 10 Gigabit.

Looking beyond its own line, 14 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 $2.18/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $1.49/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 64% to the bill at $5.66/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.