r6in.2xlarge

Analysis

The r6in.2xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r6in series with 8 vCPUs and 64 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.2xlarge on AWS Graviton2 costs $0.4032/hour, 42% less ($215 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the r6a.2xlarge at $0.4536, the r6gd.2xlarge at $0.4608 and the r6i.2xlarge at $0.5040.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of Sydney saves $109 a month per instance: $0.6973/hour against $0.8471/hour, a 21% spread. It is not offered in São Paulo, London and Mumbai, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

On demand it costs $0.6973/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $509 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for memory optimized types at the 61st percentile per vCPU ($0.0872 per vCPU-hour) and the 76th percentile per GiB ($0.0109 per GiB-hour).

Looking beyond its own line, 29 of 45 current types with 8 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r7g.2xlarge on AWS Graviton3 at $0.4284/hour.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $0.4393/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 63% of the time; three years brings it to $0.2823/hour, 60% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 53% to the bill at $1.07/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.