AWS i7ie.3xlargevsAWS i7ie.6xlarge

i7ie.3xlarge pairs 12 vCPUs with 96GB of RAM at $1.5594/hr On-Demand (about $1123/mo at 24×7). i7ie.6xlarge pairs 24 vCPUs with 192GB at $3.1188/hr (~$2246/mo). i7ie.3xlarge is 100% cheaper per hour than i7ie.6xlarge ($1.5594/hr gap).

Because both instances are in the **i7ie family**, the only thing that changes between them is sizing — same silicon, same architecture (Intel Xeon (x86_64)), same burstable/sustained behavior. The choice is purely about how much capacity you actually need: i7ie.3xlarge gives you 12 vCPUs and 96GB of RAM, i7ie.6xlarge gives you 24 vCPUs and 192GB. 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.

Benchmark data for at least one of these instances is still being collected, so a direct performance-per-dollar comparison isn't possible yet. Sysbench scores are 2819/16980 for i7ie.3xlarge and pending for i7ie.6xlarge. Check back as the benchmark queue completes — newer-generation instances typically score 10–30% higher on single-thread and 15–50% higher on multi-core vs the previous generation in the same series.

In practice, pick i7ie.3xlarge when your workload is closer to storage-optimized (NVMe SSD) (I/O-bound work needing low-latency NVMe local storage — NoSQL, search). Pick i7ie.6xlarge when it's closer to storage-optimized (NVMe SSD) (I/O-bound work needing low-latency NVMe local storage — NoSQL, search). 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.