New Amazon EC2 Instances (C7gd, M7gd, and R7gd) Powered by AWS Graviton3 Processor with Local NVMe-based SSD Storage
We launched Amazon EC2 C7g instances in May 2022 and M7g and R7g instances in February 2023. Powered by the latest AWS Graviton3 processors, the new instances deliver up to 25 percent higher performance, up to two times higher floating-point performance, and up to 2 times faster cryptographic workload performance compared to AWS Graviton2 processors.
Graviton3 processors deliver up to 3 times better performance compared to AWS Graviton2 processors for machine learning (ML) workloads, including support for bfloat16. They also support DDR5 memory that provides 50 percent more memory bandwidth compared to DDR4. Graviton3 also uses up to 60 percent less energy for the same performance as comparable EC2 instances, which helps you reduce your carbon footprint.
The C7g instances are well suited for compute-intensive workloads, such as high performance computing (HPC), batch processing, ad serving, video encoding, gaming, scientific modeling, distributed analytics, and CPU-based machine learning inference. The M7g instances are for general purpose workloads such as application servers, microservices, gaming servers, mid-sized data stores, and caching fleets. The R7g instances are a great fit for memory-intensive workloads such as open-source databases, in-memory caches, and real-time big data analytics.
Today, we’re adding a d variant to all three instance families. The new Amazon EC2 C7gd, M7gd, and R7gd instance types have NVM Express (NVMe) locally attached up to 2 x 1.9 TB SSD drives that are physically connected to the host server and provide block-level storage that is coupled to the lifetime of the instance. These instances have up to 45 percent better real-time NVMe storage performance than comparable Graviton2-based instances.
These are a great fit for applications that need access to high-speed, low-latency local storage, including those that need temporary storage of data for scratch space, temporary files, and caches. The data on an instance store volume persists only during the life of the associated EC2 instance.
Here are the specs for these instances:
| Instance Size | vCPU | Memory (GiB) |
Local NVMe Storage (GB) | Network Bandwidth (Gbps) |
EBS Bandwidth (Gbps) |
| C7gd/M7gd/R7gd | C7gd/M7gd/R7gd | C7gd/M7gd/R7gd | |||
| medium | 1 | 2/ 4 / 8 | 1 x 59 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| large | 2 | 4 / 8 / 16 | 1 x 118 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| xlarge | 4 | 8 / 16 / 32 | 1 x 237 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 10 |
| 2xlarge | 8 | 16 / 32 / 64 | 1 x 474 | Up to 15 | Up to 10 |
| 4xlarge | 16 | 32 / 64 / 128 | 1 x 950 | Up to 15 | Up to 10 |
| 8xlarge | 32 | 64 / 128 / 256 | 1 x 1900 | 15 | 10 |
| 12xlarge | 48 | 96 / 192/ 384 | 2 x 1425 | 22.5 | 15 |
| 16xlarge | 64 | 128 / 256 / 512 | 2 x 1900 | 30 | 20 |
These instances are built on the AWS Nitro System, a combination of AWS-designed dedicated hardware and a lightweight hypervisor that allows the delivery of isolated multitenancy, private networking, and fast local storage. They provide up to 20 Gbps Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) bandwidth and up to 30 Gbps network bandwidth. The 16xlarge instances also support Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for applications that need a high level of inter-node communication.
Now Available
Amazon EC2 C7gd, M7gd, and R7gd instances are now available in the following AWS Regions: US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland). As usual with Amazon EC2, you only pay for what you use. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 pricing page.
If you’re optimizing applications for Arm architecture, be sure to have a look at our Getting Started collection of resources or learn more about AWS Graviton3-based EC2 instances.
To learn more, visit our Amazon EC2 C7g instances, M7g instances or R7g instances page, and please send feedback to AWS re:Post for EC2 or through your usual AWS Support contacts.
— Channy