r5d.16xlarge

Analysis

The r5d.16xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5d series with 64 vCPUs and 512 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.16xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $3.62/hour, 22% less ($724 a month). The other variants are the r5.16xlarge at $4.03, the r5ad.16xlarge at $4.19 and the r5n.16xlarge at $4.77.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $1,962 a month per instance: $4.61/hour against $7.30/hour, a 58% spread.

On demand it costs $4.61/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $3,364 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 (4 x 600 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: 20 Gigabit.

Looking beyond its own line, 15 of 39 current types with 64 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.16xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $3.23/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $2.90/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $1.99/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 64% to the bill at $7.55/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.