i3en.metalAWS Pricing, Specs & Benchmarks
96 vCPUs • 768GB RAM • us-east-1 • x86_64
About AWS i3en storage-optimized (NVMe SSD) instances
The i3en family is a generation-3 storage-optimized (NVMe SSD) line running on Intel Xeon (x86_64). i3en.metal provides 96 vCPUs and 768GB of RAM (a 1:8 vCPU-to-memory ratio), priced at $10.8480/hr On-Demand — about $7810.56 per month at 24×7 utilization. In Sysbench CPU benchmarks it scores 1198 single-core and 78956 multi-core.
Storage-optimized (NVMe SSD) instances are sized for NoSQL databases (Cassandra, ScyllaDB), search engines (Elasticsearch), transactional databases needing very low storage latency, and large log-ingestion pipelines. If your workload doesn't match that profile — for example, if you're running a memory-bound app on a compute-optimized instance, or a CPU-pegged batch job on a burstable t-series — you'll likely pay for capacity you can't use or run into bottlenecks you didn't anticipate. The pages for sibling families (linked further down) cover those alternatives in detail.
In the AWS instance-naming convention, the digit after the series letter is the generation — higher is newer. This appears to be one of AWS's newer generations in the series, so for most fresh workloads it's a reasonable default within its category. The family suffix tells you about hardware variants: "n" = enhanced networking (typically 25–100 Gbps depending on size); "e" = extended memory variant within the family.
Pricing varies by region (sometimes meaningfully — the gap between the cheapest and most expensive AWS region for the same SKU is often 15–30%). The regional pricing table further down shows where i3en.metal is cheapest today, both On-Demand and Spot. Spot pricing for i3en.metal is currently $2.2485/hr — roughly 79% off On-Demand — which makes the instance viable for fault-tolerant batch jobs, CI fleets, and any workload that can tolerate interruption with short notice.
Hardware Specifications
Global Pricing Breakdown
| Region | On-Demand | Spot | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| us-east-1Cheapest On-Demand | $10.8480/hr | $2.2485/hr | 79% |
| us-west-2 | $10.8480/hr | $2.8129/hr | 74% |
| us-east-2 | $10.8480/hr | $1.2221/hr | 89% |
| eu-north-1 | $11.3760/hr | $1.2494/hr | 89% |
| mx-central-1 | $11.3900/hr | N/A | - |
| ap-east-2 | $11.4910/hr | N/A | - |
| ap-southeast-7 | $11.7070/hr | N/A | - |
| ap-southeast-5 | $11.7070/hr | N/A | - |
| ca-central-1Cheapest Spot | $12.0000/hr | $1.2000/hr | 90% |
| eu-west-1 | $12.0000/hr | $1.9870/hr | 83% |
| ca-west-1 | $12.0000/hr | N/A | - |
| eu-south-2 | $12.0000/hr | N/A | - |
| us-west-1 | $12.0000/hr | $2.3720/hr | 80% |
| ap-south-1 | $12.3360/hr | $2.1276/hr | 83% |
| ap-south-2 | $12.3360/hr | N/A | - |
| eu-south-1 | $12.5860/hr | N/A | - |
| il-central-1 | $12.6000/hr | N/A | - |
| eu-west-3 | $12.6240/hr | $2.4820/hr | 80% |
| eu-west-2 | $12.6240/hr | $1.6299/hr | 87% |
| ap-northeast-2 | $12.7680/hr | $1.7880/hr | 86% |
| ap-northeast-1 | $12.7680/hr | $3.9445/hr | 69% |
| ap-northeast-3 | $12.7680/hr | $1.2768/hr | 90% |
| eu-central-1 | $12.9600/hr | $4.2062/hr | 68% |
| ap-southeast-3 | $13.0080/hr | N/A | - |
| ap-southeast-1 | $13.0080/hr | $3.0934/hr | 76% |
| ap-southeast-2 | $13.0080/hr | $3.5358/hr | 73% |
| ap-southeast-4 | $13.0080/hr | N/A | - |
| us-west-2-lax-1 | $13.0180/hr | N/A | - |
| us-gov-west-1 | $13.1040/hr | N/A | - |
| us-gov-east-1 | $13.1040/hr | N/A | - |
| me-south-1 | $13.1420/hr | N/A | - |
| me-central-1 | $13.2000/hr | N/A | - |
| ap-southeast-6 | $13.6580/hr | N/A | - |
| eu-central-2 | $14.2560/hr | N/A | - |
| af-south-1 | $14.2560/hr | $1.4256/hr | 90% |
| ap-east-1 | $14.3190/hr | $4.1286/hr | 71% |
| sa-east-1 | $17.2800/hr | $1.7280/hr | 90% |
1-Year On-Demand Trajectory
Monthly price tracking
30-Day Spot Price Trajectory
Daily price tracking