x2iedn.16xlarge

Analysis

The x2iedn.16xlarge is a memory optimized instance in the x2iedn series with 64 vCPUs and 2048 GiB of memory on Intel Xeon Scalable (Icelake) (up to 3.5 GHz), which makes it very memory-heavy at 32 GiB of memory per vCPU.

Within the same generation and size, the x2gd.16xlarge on AWS Graviton2 costs $5.34/hour, 60% less ($5,836 a month), though switching means rebuilding software for arm64. The other variants are the x2idn.16xlarge at $6.67.

Nothing else with 64 vCPUs and similar memory is cheaper: among 2 current same-shape types it has the lowest on-demand price.

Running it in N. Virginia instead of São Paulo saves $9,251 a month per instance: $13.34/hour against $26.01/hour, a 95% spread.

Per vCPU it is one of the dearer memory optimized types: 94% of the 385 current types in the family cost less than its $0.2084 per vCPU-hour. The premium mostly pays for the local NVMe disk. On demand it is $13.34/hour in US East (N. Virginia), or $9,737 for a 730-hour month.

It has local instance storage (1 x 1900 GB NVMe SSD), which is fast but lost when the instance stops. Network: 50 Gigabit.

Reserving it for a year with no upfront payment cuts the Linux rate to $8.21/hour, which beats on demand once it runs more than 62% of the time; three years brings it to $4.28/hour, 68% below on demand. Windows Server roughly adds 22% to the bill at $16.28/hour, because the licence is charged per vCPU.