AWS and AMD have collaborated to give customers more choice and value in cloud computing, starting with the first generation AMD EPYC
processors in 2018 such as M5a/R5a, M5ad/R5ad, and T3a instances. In 2020, we expanded the second generation AMD EPYC processors to include C5a/C5ad instances and recently G4ad instances, combining the power of both second-generation AMD EPYC processors and AMD Radeon Pro GPUs.
Today, I am happy to announce the general availability of Amazon EC2 M6a instances featuring the 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, running at frequencies up to 3.6 GHz to offer up to 35 percent price performance versus the previous generation M5a instances.
You can launch M6a instances today in ten sizes in the AWS US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) Regions as On-Demand, Spot, and Reserved Instance or as part of a Savings Plan. Here are the specs:
| Name | vCPUs | Memory (GiB) |
Network Bandwidth (Gbps) |
EBS Throughput (Gbps) |
| m6a.large | 2 | 8 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 6.6 |
| m6a.xlarge | 4 | 16 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 6.6 |
| m6a.2xlarge | 8 | 32 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 6.6 |
| m6a.4xlarge | 16 | 64 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 6.6 |
| m6a.8xlarge | 32 | 128 | 12.5 | 6.6 |
| m6a.12xlarge | 48 | 192 | 18.75 | 10 |
| m6a.16xlarge | 64 | 256 | 25 | 13.3 |
| m6a.24xlarge | 96 | 384 | 37.5 | 20 |
| m6a.32xlarge | 128 | 512 | 50 | 26.6 |
| m6a.48xlarge | 192 | 768 | 50 | 40 |
Compared to M5a instances, the new M6a instances offer:
- Larger instance size with 48xlarge with up to 192 vCPUs and 768 GiB of memory, enabling you to consolidate more workloads on a single instance. M6a also offers Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) support for workloads that benefit from lower network latency and highly scalable inter-node communication, such as HPC and video processing.
- Up to 35 percent higher price performance per vCPU versus comparable M5a instances, up to 50 Gbps of networking speed, and up to 40 Gbps bandwidth of Amazon EBS, more than twice that of M5a instances.
- Always-on memory encryption and support for new AVX2 instructions for accelerating encryption and decryption algorithms
M6a instances expand the 6th generation general purpose instances portfolio and provide high-performance processing at 10 percent lower cost over comparable x86 instances. M6a instances are a good fit for running general-purpose workloads such as web servers, application servers, and small data stores.
To learn more, visit the M6a instances page. Please send feedback to ec2-amd-customer-feedback@amazon.com, AWS forum for EC2, or through your usual AWS Support contacts.
— Channy