Instances›AWS EC2›p2›p2.8xlarge
Compute
vCPUs32
Memory488 GiB
Mem / vCPU15.25 GiB
ProcessorXeon E5-2686 v4
Clock speed2.3 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
BandwidthN/A
ThroughputN/A
IOPS0
Networking
Performance10 Gigabit
Max ENIsN/A
IPv6Yes
GPUNVIDIA Tesla K80
Family sizes
p2.xlarge4 vCPU · 61 GiB
p2.8xlarge32 vCPU · 488 GiB
p2.16xlarge64 vCPU · 732 GiB
p2.8xlarge

The p2.8xlarge pairs 32 vCPU with 488 GiB of RAM, the 15.25 GiB-per-vCPU ratio that marks a GPU instance. In the name, "p" is accelerated computing, "2" is the generation and "8xlarge" is the size within the p2 family. It runs on Intel Xeon E5-2686 v4 (Broadwell) at 2.3 GHz, and AWS introduced it in September 2016. AWS has since shipped p3, p4d and p5; p3.8xlarge is the direct replacement at this size. Rackspace Spot has no equivalent to offer: 8 × NVIDIA Tesla K80 wired together behind a high-speed interconnect is one tightly coupled machine, not 8 independent nodes — and that interconnect is usually what the instance was bought for. Spot's largest VM tops out at 16 vCPU and 128 GiB, and even that is not the missing piece here. The table below prices what AWS charges; the honest answer on the Spot side is that this workload stays where it is.

Match qualityNo equivalent

p2.8xlarge is 8 GPUs (96 GiB VRAM) wired together inside one chassis. The interconnect is what you bought — that is what makes it one accelerator with pooled memory rather than several machines — and Rackspace Spot has nothing that reproduces it. The Spot GPU class is built on the NVIDIA A30 (Ampere, 24 GB VRAM), and separate nodes of it on ordinary datacentre networking are not a substitute for a single interconnect-joined node.

Split the job across independent single-GPU nodes only if it is data-parallel with no per-step synchronisation and the model fits one card. Model-parallel work, or anything synchronising gradients every step, does not survive the move. Rackspace Spot sells x86_64 Kubernetes nodes up to 16 vCPU, plus one NVIDIA A30 GPU class.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$7.200
US Central, Chicagono AWS region
US Central, Dallasno AWS region
Hong Kong
Sydney, Australia$12.336
London, UK
US West, San Jose
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region
US East, N. Virginia 2$7.200
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Model inference and embedding generation
  • ●Video transcoding and image processing
  • ●Machine learning experimentation and fine-tuning
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 488 GiB of RAM
  • ●Parallel work that can occupy 32 vCPU
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at 10 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. p3.8xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 488 GiB of RAM
  • ●More than 15.25 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
  • ●The work is single-threaded. Most of these 32 vCPU would sit idle.
  • ●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.
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