Instances›AWS EC2›t3›t3.xlarge
Compute
vCPUs4
Memory16 GiB
Mem / vCPU4.00 GiB
ProcessorSkylake E5 2686 v5
Clock speed3.1 GHz
Architecturex86_64
Storage
TypeEBS only
Bandwidth2,780 Mbps
Throughput347.5 MB/s
IOPS15,700
Networking
PerformanceUp to 5 Gigabit
Max ENIs4
IPv6Yes
GPUNone
Family sizes
t3.nano2 vCPU · 0.5 GiB
t3.micro2 vCPU · 1 GiB
t3.small2 vCPU · 2 GiB
t3.medium2 vCPU · 4 GiB
t3.large2 vCPU · 8 GiB
t3.xlarge4 vCPU · 16 GiB
t3.2xlarge8 vCPU · 32 GiB
t3.xlarge

t3.xlarge is AWS's general-purpose EC2 size at 4 vCPU and 16 GiB. In the name, "t" is burstable, "3" is the generation and "xlarge" is the size within the t3 family. It runs on Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5 at 3.1 GHz, and AWS introduced it in August 2018. AWS has since shipped t4g and t8i; t4g.xlarge is the direct replacement at this size, scoring 77,489 CoreMark/s against this instance's 53,933 — roughly 44% more throughput for the same vCPU count. On Rackspace Spot the same shape is gp.vs1.large — 4 vCPU, 16 GiB, matched on both dimensions, about 93% below the US East (N. Virginia) on-demand rate.

Pricing by region
1 hr
RegionAWS on-demandAWS Spot1-yr Reserved3-yr ReservedRackspace SpotYou save
US East, N. Virginia$0.166$0.043$0.104$0.072$0.011
$0.155 savings
US Central, Chicagono AWS region$0.011
US Central, Dallasno AWS region$0.021
Hong Kong$0.234$0.147$0.099$0.011
$0.223 savings
Sydney, Australia$0.211$0.068$0.133$0.091$0.011
$0.200 savings
London, UK$0.189$0.048$0.119$0.082$0.026
$0.163 savings
US West, San Jose$0.198$0.056$0.125$0.086$0.041
$0.157 savings
US Central, Dallas 2no AWS region$0.041
US East, N. Virginia 2$0.166$0.043$0.104$0.072$0.041
$0.125 savings
When to use it
Good for
  • ●Small to mid-size relational databases
  • ●Backend services with no single dominant resource
  • ●Queue workers and scheduled jobs
  • ●Workloads that fit inside 16 GiB of RAM
  • ●Small, steady services that do not need more than 4 vCPU
  • ●Network-heavy services — AWS rates this size at Up to 5 Gigabit
Avoid if
  • ●Starting a new deployment. t4g.xlarge is the newer generation at this size.
  • ●The working set needs more than 16 GiB of RAM
  • ●More than 4.00 GiB of RAM per vCPU is needed — that ratio is fixed for the whole family
  • ●Local NVMe or instance-store disk is a hard requirement
  • ●GPU or FPGA acceleration is needed
  • ●Sustained full-core CPU load. A compute-optimized family costs less per unit of work.
$121/mo on AWS on-demand against $8/mo on Rackspace Spot for the equivalent — market-priced, not list-priced.
  • 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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Frequently asked questions