r5n.24xlarge

Analysis

The r5n.24xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r5n series with 96 vCPUs and 768 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Platinum 8259 (Cascade Lake) (up to 2.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the r5a.24xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571 costs $5.42/hour, 24% less ($1,261 a month). The other variants are the r5.24xlarge at $6.05, the r5ad.24xlarge at $6.29 and the r5d.24xlarge at $6.91.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $3,048 a month per instance: $7.15/hour against $11.33/hour, a 58% spread.

On demand it costs $7.15/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $5,221 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for memory optimized types at the 40th percentile per vCPU ($0.0745 per vCPU-hour) and the 56th percentile per GiB ($0.00931 per GiB-hour).

Looking beyond its own line, 11 of 35 current types with 96 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6a.24xlarge on AMD EPYC 7R13 at $5.44/hour.

It is the largest of the 8 r5n sizes. Dropping to the r5n.16xlarge saves $1,740 a month.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $4.51/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $2.90/hour, 59% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 62% to the bill at $11.57/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.