2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors for AWS customers

Powered by a 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor running at frequencies up to 3.3Ghz, the Amazon EC2 C5a instances are the sixth instance family at AWS powered by AMD EPYC processors. By using the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor, the C5a instance delivers leadership x86 price-performance for a broad set of compute-intensive workloads including batch processing, distributed analytics, data transformations, log analytics and web applications.

Available in eight configurations, with up to 96 virtual CPUs, the Amazon EC2 C5a instances take advantage of high core counts from the AMD EPYC processor to offer the lowest cost per x86 virtual CPU in the Amazon EC2 portfolio. This provides customers with an additional choice for optimal performance and cost across a variety of compute intensive workloads, including video game development and hosting which take advantage of the high CPU core counts and memory ratios provided by C5a.

“The 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors deliver the levels of performance required for our customers to confidently bring compute-focused workloads to the cloud,” said Forrest Norrod, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Data Centre and Embedded Solutions Group, AMD. “With the new Amazon EC2 C5a instances, we are strategically expanding our presence and capabilities with AWS. Even more importantly, together we are helping to continuously improve the end user cloud experience.”

David Brown, Vice President, Amazon EC2, Amazon Web Services, added: “Together, AMD and AWS offer customers great flexibility and choice of compute options to help them optimise both performance and cost for a wide range of workloads.

“Since launching Amazon EC2 R5a, M5a, and T3a instances powered by 1st gen AMD EPYC processors, we’ve seen customers move many general purpose and memory optimised workloads to take advantage of the AMD EPYC processor capabilities and ten percent lower prices over comparable instances. With the availability of Amazon EC2 C5a instances based on the 2nd gen AMD EPYC processors, customers now have a new option that enables better performance and cost for a variety of compute intensive workloads, as well.”

AMD and AWS have provided customers with high performance, cost effective options since early 2018 with five Amazon EC2 instance families (M5a, M5ad, R5a, R5ad and T3a) spanning more than 15 global AWS Regions. The new Amazon EC2 C5a instances with 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors are available now in the AWS US East, AWS US West, AWS Europe, and AWS Asia Pacific regions.

Disk variants, Amazon EC2 C5ad, that come with local NVMe instance storage and bare metal variants, Amazon EC2 C5an.metal and Amazon EC2 C5adn.metal, are coming soon.

The AWS compute optimised EC2 instances are a direct result of the ongoing collaboration between AWS and AMD.