Instances›AWS EC2›r8i›r8i.metal-96xl
Compute
vCPUs384
Memory3072 GiB
Mem / vCPU8.00 GiB
ProcessorXeon Scalable
Clock speed3.9 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth80,000 Mbps
Throughput10000 MB/s
IOPS480,000
Networking
Performance100 Gigabit
Max ENIs24
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
r8i.large2 vCPU · 16 GiB
r8i.xlarge4 vCPU · 32 GiB
r8i.2xlarge8 vCPU · 64 GiB
r8i.4xlarge16 vCPU · 128 GiB
r8i.8xlarge32 vCPU · 256 GiB
r8i.12xlarge48 vCPU · 384 GiB
r8i.16xlarge64 vCPU · 512 GiB
r8i.24xlarge96 vCPU · 768 GiB
r8i.32xlarge128 vCPU · 1024 GiB
r8i.48xlarge192 vCPU · 1536 GiB
r8i.metal-48xl192 vCPU · 1536 GiB
r8i.96xlarge384 vCPU · 3072 GiB
r8i.metal-96xl384 vCPU · 3072 GiB
r8i.metal-96xl

The r8i.metal-96xl is a memory-optimized AWS EC2 instance: 384 vCPU and 3072 GiB of memory, 8.00 GiB per vCPU. In the name, "r" stands for RAM, "8" is the generation, "i" marks Intel processors and "metal-96xl" is the size within the r8i family. It runs on Intel Xeon Scalable (Granite Rapids) at 3.9 GHz, and AWS introduced it in August 2025. AWS has since shipped r9g. Spot's largest VM is 16 vCPU and 128 GiB, so matching this instance would take 24 × mh.vs1.2xlarge — arithmetically true and operationally absurd. The Spot column below prices that whole fleet, so read it as a scale reference rather than a drop-in replacement: at this size the useful question is what a shard of the workload costs, which is $0.021/hr per node.

Match qualityVirtualised, not bare metal

r8i.metal-96xl is a full physical server — no virtualisation layer in the way, direct access to the hardware, and a socket count that licensing can verify.

Rackspace Spot no longer sells bare metal; everything in the catalog is a virtual machine. You get the same cores and memory (24 × mh.vs1.2xlarge, 384 vCPU, 3,072 GiB), but not the dedicated hardware. If you picked r8i.metal-96xl because you needed the real machine — nested virtualisation, per-socket licensing, low-level profiling — this is not a replacement at any price. If you picked it because it is the biggest r8i, it is the same compute for a lot less.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$26.673$5.302$0.504
$26.169 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.504
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$3.144
Hong Kong$0.504
Sydney, Australia$31.964$3.196$0.504
$31.460 savings
London, UK$31.329$3.133$3.144
$28.185 savings
US West, San Jose$29.635$2.963$0.048
$29.587 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$5.808
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Large JVM heaps and application servers that hold state
  • ●OLAP and business intelligence query engines
  • ●Real-time analytics over hot datasets
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 3072 GiB of RAM
  • ●Parallel work that can occupy 384 vCPU
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at 100 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●The working set needs more than 3072 GiB of RAM
  • ●You need dedicated hardware. Rackspace Spot sells virtualised compute only.
  • ●You want a single-machine Spot equivalent. At this size there is not one.
  • ●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
  • ●CPU-bound work. You are paying for memory this workload will not use.
r8i.metal-96xl is $19,471/mo on AWS on-demand. A mh.vs1.2xlarge node on Rackspace Spot is $15/mo — at this size the per-node price is the honest comparison.
  • 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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