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AWS EC2 Instances Benchmark

Want to know which EC2 instance type has the fastest single-threaded CPU performance? You’ve come to the right place.

AWS sometimes uses custom CPU types that you won’t find listed on sites like Passmark, etc. So it’s hard to know which one to pick, if you’re looking for the fastest CPU around.

On this page we provide up-to-date benchmarks for most EC2 instance types, across the following regions:

  • North Virginia (us-east-1)
  • Oregon (us-west-2)
  • Ireland (eu-west-1)
  • Frankfurt (eu-central-1)

This can be used to make an informed decision on the best instance to select for your workflows, based on the processor model, architecture, and single-thread CPU speed.

And since speed isn’t everything, the benchmark also lists the on-demand and spot pricing for each instance type, with the trend over time.

Finally, reliability is key when running your workflows, therefore we provide data on the percentage of interruption for each instance type, giving you a clear picture of what to expect in terms of stability.

As always, it’s best to perform your own benchmarks yourself, but this can at least give you some hints in the right direction.

Note: All instance types are launched using the 2 vCPU variant.

Results

x64 EC2 instances

Region: us-east-1

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
r7iz Intel Xeon Gold 6455B (x86_64) 3153 0.1860 0.0670 64% 10-15%
c7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2929 0.0892 0.0321 64% 15-20%
m7i-flex Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2926 0.0958 0.0354 63% <5%
m7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2922 0.1008 0.0393 61% 10-15%
c7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2902 0.1026 0.0369 64% 5-10%
m7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2901 0.1159 0.0417 64% 10-15%
r7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2899 0.1522 0.0578 62% 5-10%
m6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2618 0.0864 0.0337 61% <5%
c6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2613 0.0765 0.0291 62% 5-10%
m5zn Intel Xeon Platinum 8252C CPU @ 3.80GHz (x86_64) 2492 0.1652 0.0644 61% <5%
m6i Intel Xeon Platinum 8375C CPU @ 2.90GHz (x86_64) 2340 0.1392 0.0487 65% <5%
z1d Intel Xeon Platinum 8151 CPU @ 3.40GHz (x86_64) 2289 0.1860 0.0651 65% >20%
m3 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz (x86_64) 1567 0.1330 0.0466 65% <5%
m4 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2686 v4 @ 2.30GHz (x86_64) 1478 0.1000 0.0380 62% <5%
m5a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1417 0.0860 0.0370 57% 5-10%
t3a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1369 0.0376 0.0139 63% 15-20%

Region: us-west-2

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
r7iz Intel Xeon Gold 6455B (x86_64) 3153 0.1860 0.0186 90% 5-10%
c7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2929 0.0892 0.0241 73% <5%
m7i-flex Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2926 0.0958 0.0287 70% <5%
m7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2922 0.1008 0.0302 70% <5%
c7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2902 0.1026 0.0133 87% 5-10%
m7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2901 0.1159 0.0162 86% 5-10%
r7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2899 0.1522 0.0243 84% 10-15%
m6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2618 0.0864 0.0242 72% 5-10%
c6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2613 0.0765 0.0268 65% <5%
m5zn Intel Xeon Platinum 8252C CPU @ 3.80GHz (x86_64) 2492 0.1652 0.0430 74% 5-10%
m6i Intel Xeon Platinum 8375C CPU @ 2.90GHz (x86_64) 2340 0.1392 0.0139 90% 15-20%
z1d Intel Xeon Platinum 8151 CPU @ 3.40GHz (x86_64) 2289 0.1860 0.0186 90% >20%
m3 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz (x86_64) 1567 0.1330 0.0133 90% <5%
m4 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2686 v4 @ 2.30GHz (x86_64) 1478 0.1000 0.0230 77% <5%
m5a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1417 0.0860 0.0284 67% <5%
t3a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1369 0.0376 0.0086 77% 15-20%

Region: eu-west-1

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
r7iz Intel Xeon Gold 6455B (x86_64) 3153 0.2080 0.0811 61% <5%
c7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2929 0.0958 0.0393 59% <5%
m7i-flex Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2926 0.1067 0.0438 59% <5%
m7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2922 0.1124 0.0472 58% 5-10%
c7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2902 0.1101 0.0440 60% <5%
m7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2901 0.1292 0.0581 55% <5%
r7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2899 0.1703 0.0647 62% 5-10%
m6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2618 0.0963 0.0376 61% <5%
c6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2613 0.0821 0.0378 54% <5%
m5zn Intel Xeon Platinum 8252C CPU @ 3.80GHz (x86_64) 2492 0.1841 0.0792 57% 5-10%
m6i Intel Xeon Platinum 8375C CPU @ 2.90GHz (x86_64) 2340 0.1556 0.0654 58% <5%
z1d Intel Xeon Platinum 8151 CPU @ 3.40GHz (x86_64) 2289 0.2080 0.0790 62% >20%
m3 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz (x86_64) 1567 0.1460 0.0511 65% <5%
m4 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2686 v4 @ 2.30GHz (x86_64) 1478 0.1110 0.0433 61% <5%
m5a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1417 0.0960 0.0470 51% <5%
t3a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1369 0.0408 0.0159 61% 5-10%

Region: eu-central-1

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
r7iz Intel Xeon Gold 6455B (x86_64) 3153 0.2250 0.0607 73% <5%
c7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2929 0.1018 0.0112 89% >20%
m7i-flex Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2926 0.1147 0.0390 66% <5%
m7i Intel Xeon Platinum 8488C (x86_64) 2922 0.1207 0.0423 65% 5-10%
c7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2902 0.1171 0.0422 64% >20%
m7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2901 0.1389 0.0153 89% 5-10%
r7a AMD EPYC 9R14 (x86_64) 2899 0.1835 0.0587 68% <5%
m6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2618 0.1035 0.0352 66% <5%
c6a AMD EPYC 7R13 Processor (x86_64) 2613 0.0873 0.0323 63% 10-15%
m5zn Intel Xeon Platinum 8252C CPU @ 3.80GHz (x86_64) 2492 0.1979 0.0653 67% <5%
m6i Intel Xeon Platinum 8375C CPU @ 2.90GHz (x86_64) 2340 0.1650 0.0528 68% <5%
z1d Intel Xeon Platinum 8151 CPU @ 3.40GHz (x86_64) 2289 0.2250 0.0607 73% >20%
m3 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz (x86_64) 1567 0.1580 0.0506 68% <5%
m4 Intel Xeon CPU E5-2686 v4 @ 2.30GHz (x86_64) 1478 0.1200 0.0468 61% <5%
m5a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1417 0.1040 0.0541 48% <5%
t3a AMD EPYC 7571 (x86_64) 1369 0.0432 0.0177 59% <5%

arm64 EC2 instances

Region: us-east-1

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
m7g AWS Graviton3 1548 0.0816 0.0343 58% 5-10%
m6g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1100 0.0770 0.0285 63% 10-15%
t4g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1095 0.1344 0.0511 62% 5-10%

Region: us-west-2

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
m7g AWS Graviton3 1548 0.0816 0.0228 72% <5%
m6g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1100 0.0770 0.0239 69% 10-15%
t4g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1095 0.1344 0.0484 64% 15-20%

Region: eu-west-1

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
m7g AWS Graviton3 1548 0.0910 0.0382 58% 10-15%
m6g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1100 0.0860 0.0335 61% <5%
t4g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1095 0.1472 0.0662 55% 5-10%

Region: eu-central-1

Instance family Processor CPU speed (avg) $/hour on-demand $/hour spot (avg) Spot savings over on-demand Spot % interruption
m7g AWS Graviton3 1548 0.0978 0.0313 68% <5%
m6g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1100 0.0920 0.0294 68% <5%
t4g Neoverse-N1 (aarch64) 1095 0.1536 0.0676 56% 5-10%

Analysis

What's the fastest AWS EC2 instance for x86_64?

The fastest EC2 instance for x86_64 architectures varies based on the specific workload and AWS region. However, instances from the Compute Optimized (C7a, C7i, m7a, m7i, r7a, r7iz) families come with the fastest CPUs.

What's the fastest AWS EC2 instance for ARM64?

For ARM64 architectures, the instances from the AWS Graviton series (e.g., C7g, M7g) are designed to provide the best performance. These instances are optimized for a variety of workloads and offer a significant price-performance advantage for applications built for ARM64.

About those benchmarks

Benchmarks are performed using the Passmark benchmarking tool, using the CPU Single Threaded metric.

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