r6a.8xlarge

Analysis

The r6a.8xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r6a series with 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory on AMD EPYC 7R13 (up to 3.6 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

It costs the same as the older r5a.8xlarge on AMD EPYC 7571, so the move up a generation is free. The newer r7a.8xlarge on AMD EPYC 9R14 is 34% dearer at $2.43/hour.

Running it in Mumbai instead of Frankfurt saves $763 a month per instance: $1.14/hour against $2.19/hour, a 91% spread. It is not offered in São Paulo, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

Within the same generation and size, the r6g.8xlarge on AWS Graviton2 costs $1.61/hour, 11% less ($147 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the r6gd.8xlarge at $1.84, the r6i.8xlarge at $2.02 and the r6id.8xlarge at $2.42.

At $1.81/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $1,325 a month, the r6a.8xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy memory optimized capacity: only 8% of the 385 current memory optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0567.

It is size 5 of 10 in the r6a series. Stepping up to the r6a.12xlarge gives 48 vCPUs and 384 GiB for $662 more a month. Dropping to the r6a.4xlarge saves $662 a month.