Graviton5 Powers New EC2 R9g Instances with 25% Better Performance

Graviton5 instances are here, and they're 25% faster. Don't expect miracles, but do expect cheaper RAM.

What changed

• General availability of r9g and r9gd EC2 instance types.
• These instances are powered by AWS Graviton5 processors.
• They offer up to 25% better compute performance compared to the previous generation r8g instances.

Why it matters

This release introduces the next iteration of AWS's custom silicon for memory-optimized workloads. The Graviton5 processor promises a tangible performance uplift, specifically targeting databases, in-memory caches, and real-time analytics. The honest version: This is AWS pushing its silicon advantage to make memory-bound applications run more efficiently, potentially lowering operational costs for workloads that consume significant amounts of RAM. Expect these to be the go-to for memory-intensive tasks unless specific x86 instruction sets are a hard requirement.

The catch

While the announcement touts up to 25% better compute performance, it remains vague on specific memory bandwidth improvements or I/O latency. Watch out: The Graviton5 processor is only available in select AWS Regions. Currently, these include us-east-1, us-west-2, and eu-central-1. Migrating existing workloads will require recompilation for ARM64 architecture, a non-trivial effort for some legacy applications. Pairs with: Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon RDS.

Ship it

If you are running memory-intensive workloads like Redis, Memcached, or large in-memory databases on r8g instances, evaluate migrating to r9g or r9gd instances in supported regions. The performance gains and potential cost savings warrant investigation for any workload sensitive to compute performance within a high-memory footprint.

Bottom line: Graviton5 brings a welcome performance bump to memory-optimized EC2 instances, but check region availability and ARM compatibility before migrating.

— Filed to /blog