r7iz.16xlarge

Analysis

The r7iz.16xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the r7iz series with 64 vCPUs and 512 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids) (up to 3.9 GHz), which makes it memory-heavy at 8 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the r7g.16xlarge on AWS Graviton3 costs $3.43/hour, 42% less ($1,843 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the r7i.16xlarge at $4.23, the r7gd.16xlarge at $4.35 and the r7a.16xlarge at $4.87.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of Tokyo saves $958 a month per instance: $5.95/hour against $7.26/hour, a 22% spread. It is not offered in Canada Central, São Paulo, London, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney, so plan around that if you need a presence there.

On demand it costs $5.95/hour in US East (N. Virginia), $4,345 a month if left running, which puts it mid-table for memory optimized types at the 68th percentile per vCPU ($0.0930 per vCPU-hour) and the 84th percentile per GiB ($0.0116 per GiB-hour).

Looking beyond its own line, 32 of 39 current types with 64 vCPUs and similar memory are cheaper. The cheapest of those is the r6g.16xlarge on AWS Graviton2 at $3.23/hour.

It is size 7 of 8 in the r7iz series. Stepping up to the r7iz.32xlarge gives 128 vCPUs and 1024 GiB for $4,345 more a month. Dropping to the r7iz.12xlarge saves $1,086 a month.