Amazon EC2 X2i Instances
Up to 50% better performance than X1 instances for memory-intensive workloads
Why Amazon EC2 X2i Instances?
Amazon EC2 X2i instances are the next generation of memory-optimized instances delivering improvements in performance, price performance, and cost per GiB of memory compared to previous generation X1 instances. These instances offer a choice of 16:1 or 32:1 ratio of memory to vCPU and are ideal for memory-intensive databases and electronic design automation (EDA) workloads.
X2idn and X2iedn instances are powered by 3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with an all-core turbo frequency up to 3.5 GHz and deliver up to 50% higher compute price performance than comparable X1 instances. X2idn and X2iedn instances both include up to 3.8 TB of local NVMe SSD storage and up to 100 Gbps of networking bandwidth, while X2idn offers up to 2 TiB of memory and X2iedn offers up to 4 TiB of memory. X2idn and X2iedn instances are SAP-Certified and are a great fit for workloads such as small-to large-scale traditional and in-memory databases, and analytics.
X2iezn instances are powered by 2nd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with an all core turbo frequency of up to 4.5 GHz, the fastest in the cloud. They feature up to 1.5 TiB of memory, and deliver up to 55% better price performance than X1e instances. X2iezn instances are a great fit for EDA workloads as well as relational databases that benefit from high single-threaded processor performance and a large memory footprint.
Benefits
Features
X2idn, X2iedn and X2iezn Instances Comparison
X2idn and X2iedn Instances
X2idn and X2iedn instances are a great fit for in-memory databases and analytics, large-scale traditional databases, and some EDA workloads.
Features
3rd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 3.5 GHz frequency
Up to 2 TiB of memory on X2idn; up to 4 TiB on X2iedn
Up to 80 Gbps EBS bandwidth
Up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth
Up to 3.8 TB local NVMe SSD
Up to 128 vCPU
Support for EFA on 32xlarge size
SAP Certified for Business Suite on HANA, SAP S/4HANA, Data Mart Solutions on HANA, Business Warehouse on HANA, SAP BW/4HANA, and SAP NetWeaver with anyDB. For details, see the SAP Certification website.
X2iezn Instances
X2iezn instances are ideal for EDA workloads such as physical verification, static timing analysis, power signoff, and full chip gate-level simulation, as well as relational databases.
Features
2nd generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 4.5 GHz frequency
Up to 1.5 TiB of memory
Up to 19 Gbps EBS bandwidth
Up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth
EBS-Only
Up to 48 vCPU
Support for EFA on 12xlarge and metal sizes
SAP Certified for NetWeaver with anyDB. For details, see the SAP Certification website.
X2idn
|
Instance Size
|
vCPU
|
Memory (GiB)
|
Instance Storage (GB)
|
Network Bandwidth (Gbps)
|
EBS Bandwidth (Gbps)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
x2idn.16xlarge
|
64
|
1,024
|
1 x 1900 NVMe SSD
|
50
|
40
|
|
x2idn.24xlarge
|
96
|
1,536
|
2 x 1425 NVMe SSD
|
75
|
60
|
|
x2idn.32xlarge
|
128
|
2,048
|
2 x 1900 NVMe SSD
|
100
|
80
|
|
x2idn.metal
|
128
|
2,048
|
2 x 1900 NVMe SSD
|
100
|
80
|
X2iedn
|
Instance Size
|
vCPU
|
Memory (GiB)
|
Instance Storage (GB)
|
Network Bandwidth (Gbps)
|
EBS Bandwidth (Gbps)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
x2iedn.xlarge
|
4
|
128
|
1 x 118 NVMe SSD
|
Up to 25
|
Up to 20
|
|
x2iedn.2xlarge
|
8
|
256
|
1 x 237 NVMe SSD
|
Up to 25
|
Up to 20
|
|
x2iedn.4xlarge
|
16
|
512
|
1 x 475 NVMe SSD
|
Up to 25
|
Up to 20
|
|
x2iedn.8xlarge
|
32
|
1,024
|
1 x 950 NVMe SSD
|
25
|
20
|
|
x2iedn.16xlarge
|
64
|
2,048
|
1 x 1900 NVMe SSD
|
50
|
40
|
|
x2iedn.24xlarge
|
96
|
3,072
|
2 x 1425 NVMe SSD
|
75
|
60
|
|
x2iedn.32xlarge
|
128
|
4,096
|
2 x 1900 NVMe SSD
|
100
|
80
|
|
x2iedn.metal
|
128
|
4,096
|
2 x 1900 NVMe SSD
|
100
|
80
|
X2iezn
|
Instance Size
|
vCPU
|
Memory (GiB)
|
Instance Storage (GB)
|
Network Bandwidth (Gbps)
|
EBS Bandwidth (Gbps)
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
x2iezn.2xlarge
|
8
|
256
|
EBS-Only
|
Up to 25
|
3.17
|
|
x2iezn.4xlarge
|
16
|
512
|
EBS-Only
|
Up to 25
|
4.75
|
|
x2iezn.6xlarge
|
24
|
768
|
EBS-Only
|
50
|
9.5
|
|
x2iezn.8xlarge
|
32
|
1,024
|
EBS-Only
|
75
|
12
|
|
x2iezn.12xlarge
|
48
|
1,536
|
EBS-Only
|
100
|
19
|
|
x2iezn.metal
|
48
|
1,536
|
EBS-Only
|
100
|
19
|
Customer testimonials
Here are examples of how customers and partners have achieved their business agility, price performance, cost savings, and sustainability goals with Amazon EC2 X2i instances.
Siemens
"Siemens EDA helps you engineer a smarter future faster, delivering an unmatched portfolio of electronic design automation (EDA) software, hardware, and services. Siemens EDA worked with AWS to test the new Amazon EC2 X2iezn HPC/EDA focused instances with the industry performance and sign-off leader Calibre evaluating advanced node DRC workloads. We were pleased to demonstrate performance improvements of up to 14% using the 4.5 GHz all core turbo frequency of X2iezn instances for all VMs in the run. Additionally, we successfully demonstrated the use of a heterogeneous server configuration using the X2iezn as the primary node and other lower memory VMs for remote compute - providing an 11% speed up and attractive value. These results confirmed the X2iezn is a good fit for primary server EDA workloads for Calibre Physical and Circuit verification applications."
Michael White, Senior Director, Physical Verification Product Management Calibre Design Solutions, Siemens EDA
Annapurna Labs
"Annapurna Labs, an Amazon company, is the chip development arm of AWS responsible for designing the AWS Nitro System, AWS Graviton processors, AWS Inferentia chips, and AWS Trainium chips. At Annapurna Labs, we have been running machine-learning SoC blocks’ design rule checks using Amazon EC2 X1e and R5d instances. Our testing of the X2iezn instances with Calibre’s Design Rule Checking has shown a 40% faster runtime compared to X1e instances, and a 25% faster runtime over R5d instances. We were able to quickly and easily migrate our workloads to the X2iezn instances and can now test more EDA workloads in a shorter period of time."
Nafea Bshara, Vice President, and Distinguished Engineer at Annapurna Labs
NXP
"NXP Semiconductors, N.V. announced they are moving their EDA to the cloud. Chip design requires extensive simulation and validation, requiring a significant amount of compute power with high frequency processors. We worked with AWS to run our Calibre and Spectre workloads on Amazon EC2 X2iezn instances, which feature the fastest Intel Xeon Scalable processors in the cloud, with an all core turbo frequency of up to 4.5GHz. We measured 10-15% higher performance using X2iezn instances compared to our on-premises, Xeon Gold 6254 with max turbo frequency of 4.0GHz."
Maarten Kelderman, Director R&D IT Design Infrastructure
Astera Labs
"Astera Labs, founded in 2017, is a fabless, cloud-based semiconductor company developing purpose-built CXL, PCIe, and Ethernet connectivity solutions for data-centric systems. During the chip design and verification process, Astera Labs believes it is critical to identify potential flaws using simulation tools. That’s what interested Astera Labs in using Amazon EC2 X2iezn instance, which offers an industry-leading all-core turbo frequency of up to 4.5GHz. We were able to see performance gains of up to 25% compared to similar EDA workloads running on R5 instances."
Jitendra Mohan, CEO Astera Labs
Cadence
"Cadence is a leader in electronic design, building upon more than 30 years of computational software expertise. The company applies its underlying Intelligent System Design strategy to turn concepts into reality. We have been working with AWS to test their new X2iezn instances, which offers an all-core turbo frequency of up to 4.5 GHz. We tested the X2iezn instances using our Pegasus Verification System, which allows designers to run physical verification jobs on the cloud without having to copy any design layout/schematic or foundry rule decks to the cloud and observed a 50% performance improvement over AWS R5 instances. We see X2iezn instances as an excellent environment for testing EDA workloads."
Mahesh Turaga, Vice President, business development, Cloud at Cadence
Synopsys
"Synopsys customers leverage our tools in the cloud to accelerate delivery of next-generation products. Synopsys IC Validator is one such tool that provides highly scalable high-performance physical verification signoff. On Amazon’s new EC2 X2iezn instances, we achieved 15% performance improvement, scalability to 1000s of cores, and 30% better efficiency using IC Validator’s unique elastic CPU management technology versus R5d instances."
Christen Decoin, VP Business Dev, Custom Design and Manufacturing Group, Synopsys Inc.
