The r7i.8xlarge pairs 32 vCPU with 256 GiB of RAM, the 8.00 GiB-per-vCPU ratio that marks a memory-optimized instance. In the name, "r" stands for RAM, "7" is the generation, "i" marks Intel processors and "8xlarge" is the size within the r7i family. It runs on Intel Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids) at 3.2 GHz, and AWS introduced it in October 2023. AWS has since shipped r8i and r9g; r8i.8xlarge is the direct replacement at this size. Spot's node ladder tops out below this size, so r7i.8xlarge becomes 2 × mh.vs1.2xlarge (32 vCPU, 256 GiB combined), $2.12/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.042/hr on Rackspace Spot. Spot delivers compute as managed Kubernetes, so a node pool of that size is the native shape of the answer rather than a workaround — provided the workload scales horizontally.
| Region | AWS on-demand | AWS Spot | 1-yr Reserved | 3-yr Reserved | Rackspace Spot | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US East, N. Virginia | $2.117 | $0.522 | $1.400 | $0.960 | $0.042 | $2.075 savings |
| US Central, Chicago | no AWS region | $0.042 | ||||
| US Central, Dallas | no AWS region | $0.262 | ||||
| Hong Kong | $0.042 | |||||
| Sydney, Australia | $2.537 | $0.943 | $1.676 | $1.153 | $0.042 | $2.495 savings |
| London, UK | $2.486 | $0.709 | $1.649 | $1.124 | $0.262 | $2.224 savings |
| US West, San Jose | $2.352 | $0.915 | $1.556 | $1.067 | $0.004 | $2.348 savings |
| US Central, Dallas 2 | no AWS region | $0.484 |