g3s.xlarge is AWS's GPU EC2 size at 4 vCPU and 30.5 GiB. In the name, "g" is graphics, "3" is the generation and "xlarge" is the size within the g3s family. It runs on Intel Xeon E5-2686 v4 (Broadwell) at 2.3 GHz, and AWS introduced it in October 2018. AWS has since shipped g4ad, g5, g6 and g7; g4ad.xlarge is the direct replacement at this size. Rackspace Spot runs one GPU class, gpu.vs2.xlargeplusplus — a single NVIDIA A30 with 24 vCPU and 64 GiB, in San Jose only. Against this instance's 1 × NVIDIA Tesla M60 that is a fair swap for inference and media work — the A30 carries more memory and more throughput per card.
Match qualityComparable GPU
g3s.xlarge pairs 1 GPU (8 GiB VRAM) with 4 vCPU. Spot's GPU node uses the NVIDIA A30 (Ampere, 24 GB VRAM) with 24 vCPU and 64 GiB of memory — more GPU memory, more CPU and newer hardware than g3s.xlarge. For inference, batch transcoding and single-card fine-tuning that is an upgrade rather than a compromise. The catch is location rather than hardware: US West, San Jose is the only Spot region that offers it, so latency to your users and egress to your data are the things to check.
Pricing by region
1 hr
Region
AWS on-demand
AWS Spot
1-yr Reserved
3-yr Reserved
Rackspace Spot
You save
US West, San Jose
$0.191
When to use it
Good for
●Video transcoding and image processing
●Machine learning experimentation and fine-tuning
●Remote graphics workstations and rendering
●Workloads that fit inside 30.5 GiB of RAM
●Small, steady services that do not need more than 4 vCPU
●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at 10 Gigabit
Avoid if
●Starting a new deployment. g4ad.xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
●The working set needs more than 30.5 GiB of RAM
●More than 7.63 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
●Anything the CPU can do fast enough. GPU hours are the most expensive on the price list.
Rackspace Spot sells spare capacity at market prices. You pay what the market decides, not a list price.
Spot sells spare capacity at market prices. It is the cheapest compute on the internet.
Prices are set by supply and demand. You pay what the market decides.
Compute is delivered as fully managed Kubernetes. All infrastructure is taken care of.
Egress costs $0.01/GB after the free allowance. AWS charges $0.09/GB.
