AWS continues to prioritize Intel by placing a new order for custom Xeon processors
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has made a significant move in the hyperscale cloud market by announcing two new instance types, the R8i and R8i-flex. These new offerings are powered by custom Xeon processors acquired from Intel, designed exclusively for AWS and optimized for cloud workloads.
The custom Xeon processors offer several key advantages. For instance, they boast a higher sustained all-core turbo frequency of 3.9 GHz, providing improved processor speed and responsiveness. Moreover, they support DDR5 memory at 7200 MT/s, enabling up to 2.5 times more memory bandwidth compared to prior Intel-based instances, delivering much faster data access for memory-intensive applications.
Intel's collaboration with AWS extends beyond the hardware. The companies have also worked closely on firmware, hypervisors, virtualization layers, and software frameworks to optimize performance comprehensively for cloud applications. This extensive software and firmware co-optimization is a significant factor in the R8i and R8i-flex instances' ability to deliver the highest performance and fastest memory bandwidth among comparable Intel processors in the cloud.
The R8i and R8i-flex instances also feature built-in AI acceleration with integrated Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), which accelerates AI inference and machine learning tasks, providing up to 2x performance gains in these workloads without needing specialized accelerators.
The new instance types are designed to cater to large-scale, memory-intensive workloads, such as SQL and NoSQL databases, distributed web scale in-memory caches, SAP HANA, and big data tools like Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark clusters. They can be configured to scale to very high virtual CPU counts, up to 384 vCPUs, and offer a approximate 15% price-performance improvement over previous Intel instances in AWS generation, driven by these multiple customizations.
The acquisition of custom Xeon processors by AWS is good news for Intel, as the company is considered a key customer in the hyperscale cloud market. The new R8i and R8i-flex instances deliver the fastest memory bandwidth and highest performance among comparable Intel processors in the cloud, giving AWS an edge in the competitive market.
Sources: 1. AWS News Blog: Introducing the R8i and R8i-flex instances, the fastest memory-optimized instances in the cloud 2. TechCrunch: AWS unveils new R8i and R8i-flex instances with custom Xeon processors 3. The Register: AWS's new R8i and R8i-flex instances feature custom Xeon processors 4. Data Center Knowledge: AWS launches new R8i and R8i-flex instances with custom Xeon processors 5. ZDNet: AWS's new R8i and R8i-flex instances: A deep dive
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