AWS debuts Haswell-powered C4 instances for heavy duty computing
Amazon Web Services has launched its C4 instances - ones aimed at particularly processor-intensive applications - on EC2.
The instances, first revealed in November last year, are aimed at computing workloads that are "voracious consumers of CPU cycles", such as top-end website hosting, online gaming, simulation, risk analysis or high performance computing applications. These instances are designed to deliver the highest level of processor performance on EC2, the company said.
C4 instances are available in five sizes, offering up to 36 vCPUs and are based on Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (Haswell) processors running at 2.9 GHz, and up to 3.5 GHz with Turbo boost.
AWS said each C4 instance type is EBS-optimised: providing 500 Mbps to 4,000 Mbps of dedicated throughput to EBS, in addition to the standard network throughput provided. C4 instances also provide enhanced networking for higher packet per second performance, lower network jitter, and lower network latencies.
The C4 instances can be launched as On-Demand, purchased as Reserved Instances, or accessed via the Spot Market. Users can also launch applications from the AWS Marketplace on C4 instances in any region where they are supported.
The pricing for the C4 instances for the US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon) AWS regions are below - details of other pricing can be found on the Amazon EC2 pricing page.
| Instance type | vCPUs | Memory GiB | Networking performance | Dedicated ESB throughput | Linux on-demand price |
| C4.large | 2 | 3.75 | Moderate | 500 | $0.116 per hour |
| C.4xlarge | 4 | 7.5 | Moderate | 750 | $0.232 per hour |
| c4.2xlarge | 8 | 15 | High | 1000 | $0.464 per hour |
| c4.4xlarge | 16 | 30 | High | 2000 | $0.928 per hour |
| c4.8xlarge | 36 | 60 | 10 Gigabit | 4000 | $1.856 per hour |
The instances are currently available across seven AWS regions - US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), US West (N. California), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo).
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