High performance computing from the Amazon cloud with AMD processors

Under the name Hpc6a, Amazon is introducing a new EC2 instance type for its AWS cloud. It should – the name High Performance Computing or HPC suggests – offer particularly high performance. At the same time, however, it should set itself apart from other instance types previously used for this through the lower costs during operation.

The heart of the Hpc6a is always an AMD processor of the third Epyc generation called Milan. Each instance offers 96 cores – which are explicitly physical cores of the processor and not threads, as is usually the case with vCPUs. The reason for this is that Amazon deactivates Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT). Even if AWS does not provide any precise information about the equipment of the servers, this indicates the choice of two Epyc…