r7a.8xlargeAWS Pricing, Specs & Benchmarks

The r7a family is a generation-7 memory-optimized line running on AMD EPYC (x86_64) — typically ~10% cheaper than the Intel sibling at comparable single-thread performance. r7a.8xlarge provides 32 vCPUs and 256GB of RAM (a 1:8 vCPU-to-memory ratio), priced at $2.4344/hr On-Demand — about $1752.77 per month at 24×7 utilization. In Sysbench CPU benchmarks it scores 4535 single-core and 144826 multi-core.

Memory-optimized instances are sized for in-memory databases (Redis, Memcached), real-time analytics, large caches, and any workload whose working set wants to fit in RAM. 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.

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 r7a.8xlarge is cheapest today, both On-Demand and Spot. Spot pricing for r7a.8xlarge is currently $0.4002/hr — roughly 84% 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.