Cost Optimisation
AWS Graviton3 vs Intel vs AMD: Real-World Cost Savings and Performance Benchmarks
The Graviton Promise
AWS claims Graviton3 delivers "up to 40% better price-performance" than equivalent Intel and AMD instances. Let's verify this with real pricing data.
Graviton3 vs Intel vs AMD — Verified Pricing
| Category | Graviton3 | Intel (latest) | AMD (latest) | Graviton3 vs Intel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General 2vCPU/8GB | m7g.large $0.0816 | m7i.large $0.1008 | m7a.large $0.1073 | -19% vs Intel |
| General 8vCPU/32GB | m7g.2xlarge $0.3264 | m7i.2xlarge $0.4032 | m7a.2xlarge $0.4290 | -19% vs Intel |
| Compute 4vCPU/8GB | c7g.xlarge $0.1450 | c7i.xlarge $0.1786 | c7a.xlarge $0.1769 | -19% vs Intel |
| Memory 8vCPU/64GB | r7g.2xlarge $0.4271 | r7i.2xlarge $0.5292 | — | -19% vs Intel |
The pricing advantage is consistent at ~19% cheaper than equivalent Intel and ~25% cheaper than AMD for Linux workloads.
Workloads Best Suited for Graviton
- Web application servers (Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go)
- API gateways and microservices
- Containers and Kubernetes (EKS)
- Java applications (OpenJDK excellent on Graviton)
- Big data processing (Spark, Kafka)
- Media encoding (FFMPEG)
Workloads That Don't Migrate Easily
- Windows applications (no Windows support on Graviton)
- Applications with x86-specific compiled dependencies
- Legacy .NET Framework (not .NET Core)
- Some database binaries (verify with vendor)
Real Savings Example — 50-Node Web Cluster
| Configuration | Instance | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current (m7i.xlarge) | 50× $0.2016/hr | $7,378 | $88,534 |
| Graviton3 (m7g.xlarge) | 50× $0.1632/hr | $5,957 | $71,462 |
| Saving | — | $1,421/mo | $17,072/yr |
Migration Effort
Most containerised applications: rebuild container images with multi-arch (ARM64 + AMD64) support — typically 1-2 days. Native applications: recompile for ARM64, run test suite. For most modern languages, this is straightforward. Oracle-specific note: if your Java application uses specific JVM flags or commercial extensions, test thoroughly before migration.
For any new deployment, default to Graviton3. For existing deployments, run a 1-week side-by-side test on a subset of nodes. The 19% saving is virtually guaranteed for Linux workloads.
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