Instance types

Instance families

• C – Compute

• D – Dense storage

• F – FPGA

• G – GPU

• Hpc – High performance computing

• I – I/O

• Inf – Amazon Inferentia

• M – Most scenarios

• P – GPU

• R – Random access memory

• T – Turbo

• Trn – Amazon Tranium

• U – Ultra-high memory

• VT – Video transcoding

• X – Extra-large memory

Additional capabilities

• a – AMD processors

• g – Amazon Graviton processors

• i – Intel processors

• d – Instance store volumes

• n – Network optimization

• b – Block storage optimization

• e – Extra storage or memory

• z – High frequency

• General purpose: M6a, M6g, M6gd, M6i, M6id, M6idn, M6in, M7g, T4g

• Compute optimized: C6a, C6g, C6gd, C6gn, C6i, C6id, C6in, C7g, Hpc6a

• Memory optimized: Hpc6id, R6a, R6g, R6gd, R6i, R6id, R6idn, R6in, R7g, X2gd, X2idn, X2iedn

• Storage optimized: I4i, Im4gn, Is4gen

• Accelerated computing: G5g, Trn1

• Intel AES New Instructions (AES-NI) — Intel AES-NI encryption instruction set improves upon the original Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm to provide faster data protection and greater security. All current generation EC2 instances support this processor feature.

• Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX, Intel AVX2, and Intel AVX-512) — Intel AVX and Intel AVX2 are 256-bit, and Intel AVX-512 is a 512-bit instruction set extension designed for applications that are Floating Point (FP) intensive. Intel AVX instructions improve performance for applications like image and audio/video processing, scientific simulations, financial analytics, and 3D modeling and analysis. These features are only available on instances launched with HVM AMIs.

• Intel Turbo Boost Technology — Intel Turbo Boost Technology processors automatically run cores faster than the base operating frequency.

• Intel Deep Learning Boost (Intel DL Boost) — Accelerates AI deep learning use cases. The 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors extend Intel AVX-512 with a new Vector Neural Network Instruction (VNNI/INT8) that significantly increases deep learning inference performance over previous generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (with FP32) for image recognition/segmentation, object detection, speech recognition, language translation, recommendation systems, reinforcement learning, and more. VNNI may not be compatible with all Linux distributions.

  The following instances support VNNI: M5n, R5n, M5dn, M5zn, R5b, R5dn, D3, D3en, and C6i. C5 and C5d instances support VNNI for only 12xlarge, 24xlarge, and metal instances.

• Workloads that require access to low-level hardware features (for example, Intel VT) that are not available or fully supported in virtualized environments

• Applications that require a non-virtualized environment for licensing or support

Nitro components

The following components are part of the Nitro System:

• Nitro card

  • Local NVMe storage volumes

  • Networking hardware support

  • Management

  • Monitoring

  • Security

• Nitro security chip, integrated into the motherboard

• Nitro hypervisor - A lightweight hypervisor that manages memory and CPU allocation and delivers performance that is indistinguishable from bare metal for most workloads.

• General purpose: A1, M5, M5a, M5ad, M5d, M5dn, M5n, M5zn, M6a, M6g, M6gd, M6i, M6id, M6idn, M6in, M7g, T3, T3a, and T4g

• Compute optimized: C5, C5a, C5ad, C5d, C5n, C6a, C6g, C6gd, C6gn, C6i, C6id, C6in, C7g, and Hpc6a

• Memory optimized: Hpc6id, R5, R5a, R5ad, R5b, R5d, R5dn, R5n, R6a, R6g, R6gd, R6i, R6idn, R6in, R6id, R7g, U-3tb1, U-6tb1, U-9tb1, U-12tb1, X2gd, X2idn, X2iedn, X2iezn, and z1d

• Storage optimized: D3, D3en, I3en, I4g, I4i, Im4gn, and Is4gen

• Accelerated computing: DL1, G4ad, G4dn, G5, G5g, Inf1, Inf2, P3dn, P4d, P4de, Trn1, Trn1n, and VT1

• General purpose: a1.metal | m5.metal | m5d.metal | m5dn.metal | m5n.metal | m5zn.metal | m6a.metal | m6g.metal | m6gd.metal | m6i.metal | m6id.metal | m6idn.metal | m6in.metal | m7g.metal | mac1.metal | mac2.metal

• Compute optimized: c5.metal | c5d.metal | c5n.metal | c6a.metal | c6g.metal | c6gd.metal | c6i.metal | c6id.metal | c6in.metal | c7g.metal

• Memory optimized: r5.metal | r5b.metal | r5d.metal | r5dn.metal | r5n.metal | r6a.metal | r6g.metal | r6gd.metal | r6i.metal | r6idn.metal | r6in.metal | r6id.metal | r7g.metal | u-6tb1.metal | u-9tb1.metal | u-12tb1.metal | u-18tb1.metal | u-24tb1.metal | x2gd.metal | x2idn.metal | x2iedn.metal | x2iezn.metal | z1d.metal

• Storage optimized: i3.metal | i3en.metal | i4i.metal

• Accelerated computing: g4dn.metal | g5g.metal

Networking features

• IPv6 is supported on all current generation instance types and the C3, R3, and I2 previous generation instance types.

• To maximize the networking and bandwidth performance of your instance type, you can do the following:

  • Launch supported instance types into a cluster placement group to optimize your instances for high performance computing (HPC) applications. Instances in a common cluster placement group can benefit from high-bandwidth, low-latency networking. For more information, see Placement groups.

  • Enable enhanced networking for supported current generation instance types to get significantly higher packet per second (PPS) performance, lower network jitter, and lower latencies. For more information, see Enhanced networking on Linux.

• Current generation instance types that are enabled for enhanced networking have the following networking performance attributes:

  • Traffic within the same Region over private IPv4 or IPv6 can support 5 Gbps for single-flow traffic and up to 25 Gbps for multi-flow traffic (depending on the instance type).

  • Traffic to and from Amazon S3 buckets within the same Region over the public IP address space or through a VPC endpoint can use all available instance aggregate bandwidth.

• The maximum transmission unit (MTU) supported varies across instance types. All Amazon EC2 instance types support standard Ethernet V2 1500 MTU frames. All current generation instances support 9001 MTU, or jumbo frames, and some previous generation instances support them as well. For more information, see Network maximum transmission unit (MTU) for your EC2 instance.

Storage features

• Some instance types support EBS volumes and instance store volumes, while other instance types support only EBS volumes. Some instance types that support instance store volumes use solid state drives (SSD) to deliver very high random I/O performance. Some instance types support NVMe instance store volumes. Some instance types support NVMe EBS volumes. For more information, see Amazon EBS and NVMe on Linux instances and NVMe SSD volumes.

• To obtain additional, dedicated capacity for Amazon EBS I/O, you can launch some instance types as EBS–optimized instances. Some instance types are EBS–optimized by default. For more information, see Amazon EBS–optimized instances.