r5d.xlarge

Analysis

The r5d.xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5d series with 4 vCPUs and 32 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.xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $0.2260/hour, 22% less ($45.26 a month). The other variants are the r5.xlarge at $0.2520, the r5ad.xlarge at $0.2620 and the r5n.xlarge at $0.2980.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $123 a month per instance: $0.2880/hour against $0.4560/hour, a 58% spread.

On demand it costs $0.2880/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $210 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 (1 x 150 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: Up to 10 Gigabit.

Looking beyond its own line, 15 of 45 current types with 4 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $0.2016/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.1810/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.1240/hour, 57% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 64% to the bill at $0.4720/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.