The r8in.12xlarge pairs 48 vCPU with 384 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, "in" marks Intel processors and enhanced networking and "12xlarge" is the size within the r8in family. It runs on Intel Xeon Scalable (Granite Rapids) at 3.9 GHz, and AWS introduced it in April 2026. AWS has since shipped r9g; r9g.12xlarge is the direct replacement at this size. Spot's node ladder tops out below this size, so r8in.12xlarge becomes 3 × mh.vs1.2xlarge (48 vCPU, 384 GiB combined), $5.02/hr on AWS in US East (N. Virginia), from $0.063/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 | $5.021 | $2.174 | $0.063 | $4.958 savings | ||
| US Central, Chicago | no AWS region | $0.063 | ||||
| US Central, Dallas | no AWS region | $0.393 | ||||
| Hong Kong | $0.063 | |||||
| Sydney, Australia | $0.063 | |||||
| London, UK | $0.393 | |||||
| US West, San Jose | $6.025 | $1.747 | $0.006 | $6.019 savings | ||
| US Central, Dallas 2 | no AWS region | $0.726 |