Azure Dpsv5 ARM VMs Now GA in Southeast Asia — Up to 50% Better Price-Performance

Microsoft has made Dpsv5 instances (powered by Ampere Altra ARM processors) generally available in the Singapore region. These instances offer up to 50% better price-performance compared to equivalent x86 Dsv5 instances for Linux cloud-native workloads. The instances use Neoverse N1 cores at up to 3.0 GHz.

Key specs: Dpsv5 instances range from Dp2s v5 (2 vCPU, 8 GB at approximately $55/month) to Dp64s v5 (64 vCPU, 256 GB at approximately $1,750/month). The memory ratio is 1:4 (vCPU:GB) — same as standard D-series. Pricing is approximately 25% lower than the equivalent Dsv5 Intel instances in Singapore.

Comparison with AWS Graviton3: r8g and c7g on AWS offer similar ARM performance. Azure Dpsv5 is priced competitively — Dp8s v5 (8 vCPU, 32 GB) at approximately $220/month vs AWS m7g.2xlarge (8 vCPU, 32 GB) at approximately $245/month in Singapore. Azure Hybrid Benefit applies for Linux customers with qualifying OS subscriptions.

TCOIQ Action: Windows workloads are not supported on ARM — stay on Dsv5 for Windows. For containerised Linux workloads in Singapore, test your Docker images first. Most public images now include ARM builds, but some third-party images remain x86-only. Use Dpsv5 for Kubernetes nodes, API servers and stateless web tiers.