AWS c7gd.2xlargevsAWS c7gd.8xlarge

c7gd.2xlarge pairs 8 vCPUs with 16GB of RAM at $0.3629/hr On-Demand (about $261/mo at 24×7). c7gd.8xlarge pairs 32 vCPUs with 64GB at $1.4515/hr (~$1045/mo). c7gd.2xlarge is 300% cheaper per hour than c7gd.8xlarge ($1.0886/hr gap).

Because both instances are in the **c7gd family**, the only thing that changes between them is sizing — same silicon, same architecture (AWS Graviton (ARM64)), same burstable/sustained behavior. The choice is purely about how much capacity you actually need: c7gd.2xlarge gives you 8 vCPUs and 16GB of RAM, c7gd.8xlarge gives you 32 vCPUs and 64GB. AWS scales pricing close to linearly within a family, so picking the right size is mostly about right-sizing your workload, not getting a better deal per vCPU.

On raw price-per-performance, the two are c7gd.2xlarge delivers ~300% more single-thread Sysbench score per dollar (8319 vs 2079 points per $1/hr). That's the cleanest signal we have for "which one runs your workload faster per dollar," but it only matters if your workload is single-thread-bound; for parallel workloads the multi-core scores (23914 vs 96199) are what to weigh. Spot pricing flips many of these comparisons — when c7gd.2xlarge drops to $0.0566/hr and c7gd.8xlarge drops to $0.3879/hr, the cheap-per-hour winner can swing meaningfully.

In practice, pick c7gd.2xlarge when your workload is closer to compute-optimized (CPU-bound work — batch processing, web servers under sustained load, game servers). Pick c7gd.8xlarge when it's closer to compute-optimized (CPU-bound work — batch processing, web servers under sustained load, game servers). When neither side is obviously right, the cheaper hourly rate usually wins for fault-tolerant batch workloads, while the higher single-core score usually wins for latency-sensitive web traffic. The regional pricing tables linked from each instance page below show where each is currently cheapest — sometimes a >20% regional gap flips the comparison entirely.