How is processor type determined for T3 instances?

Question

Hi.  We're running four T3 instances in two Availability Zones in the Asia Pacific (Sydney) region.

The AWS docmentation on instance types (https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/) states that the CPUs for T3 instances will be "Up to 3.1 GHz Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Skylake 8175M or Cascade Lake 8259CL)".

Our t3.small and two t3.micro instances have the Cascade Lake 8259CL processor.  Our t3.2xlarge instance - which does most of our work - has a Skylake 8175M processor.

From my simple benchmark tests it looks like the Cascade Lake 8259CL processor is something like 2-3 times faster than the Skylake 8175M processor.  I'd dearly love the T3.2xlarge instance to acquire the Cascade Lake 8259CL processor; the performance benefit for our application would be terrific!

What determines the selection of processor type for T3 instances?  How can I endeavour to have our t3.2xlarge instance to procure the faster processor?  Thanks for any help!

Brettski-AWS · Accepted Answer

You can't control the selection of CPU type - as the documentation you've linked to states; there are multiple CPU types in use for the instance type. You could launch an instance; check the CPU type; and keep doing that until you get one that you prefer but it's not a great solution.

Otherwise, you would need to choose an instance type where a single CPU type is used for that type.

How is processor type determined for T3 instances?

Relevant content