The r8gd.48xlarge pairs 192 vCPU with 1536 GiB of RAM, the 8.00 GiB-per-vCPU ratio that marks a memory-optimized instance. In the name, "r" stands for RAM, "8" is the generation, "gd" marks AWS Graviton (ARM) processors and local NVMe storage and "48xlarge" is the size within the r8gd family. It runs on AWS Graviton4 Processor at 2.7 GHz, and AWS introduced it in April 2025. AWS has since shipped r9gd; r9gd.48xlarge is the direct replacement at this size. Spot's node ladder tops out below this size, so r8gd.48xlarge becomes 12 × mh.vs1.2xlarge (192 vCPU, 1536 GiB combined), $14.11/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.252/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 | $14.108 | $9.861 | $0.252 | $13.856 savings | ||
| US Central, Chicago | no AWS region | $0.252 | ||||
| US Central, Dallas | no AWS region | $1.572 | ||||
| Hong Kong | $17.148 | $0.252 | $16.896 savings | |||
| Sydney, Australia | $16.235 | $3.494 | $0.252 | $15.983 savings | ||
| London, UK | $16.558 | $1.656 | $1.572 | $14.986 savings | ||
| US West, San Jose | $15.873 | $1.587 | $0.024 | $15.849 savings | ||
| US Central, Dallas 2 | no AWS region | $2.904 |