r6i.8xlarge

Analysis

The r6i.8xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r6i series with 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon 8375C (Ice Lake) (up to 3.5 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the r6g.8xlarge on AWS Graviton2 costs $1.61/hour, 20% less ($294 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the r6a.8xlarge at $1.81, the r6gd.8xlarge at $1.84 and the r6id.8xlarge at $2.42.

At $2.02/hour on demand in US East (N. Virginia), about $1,472 a month, the r6i.8xlarge is one of the cheaper ways to buy memory optimized capacity: only 16% of the 385 current memory optimized types cost less per vCPU-hour than its $0.0630.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $876 a month per instance: $2.02/hour against $3.22/hour, a 60% spread.

The newer r7i.8xlarge on Intel Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids) is 5.0% dearer at $2.12/hour.

Looking beyond its own line, 6 of 41 current types with 32 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r7g.8xlarge on AWS Graviton3 at $1.71/hour.

It is size 5 of 9 in the r6i series. Stepping up to the r6i.12xlarge gives 48 vCPUs and 384 GiB for $736 more a month. Dropping to the r6i.4xlarge saves $736 a month.