Compute-optimized machine family for Compute Engine

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Compute-optimized virtual machine (VMs) instances are ideal for compute-intensive and high performance computing (HPC) workloads. Compute-optimized VMs offer the highest performance per core and are built on architecture that utilizes features like non-uniform memory access (NUMA) for optimal reliable uniform performance.

Machine	Workloads
H3 machine series	HPC workloads Computational fluid dynamics, crash safety, genomics, and financial modeling General scientific and engineering computing
C2D machine series	Memory-bound workloads Gaming (AAA game servers) High performance computing (HPC) High performance databases Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Media transcoding
C2 machine series	Compute-bound workloads High-performance web serving Gaming (AAA game servers) Ad serving High performance computing (HPC) Media transcoding AI/ML

The following machine series are available in this machine family:

• H3 VMs are powered by two 4th-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids) which have an all-core frequency of 3.0 GHz. H3 VMs have 88 virtual cores (vCPUs) and 352 GB of DDR5 memory.
• C2D VMs run on the 3rd-generation AMD EPYC Milan processor and offer up to 3.5 GHz max boost frequency. C2D VMs have flexible sizing between 2 to 112 vCPUs and 2 to 8 GB of memory per vCPU.
• C2 VMs run on the 2nd-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (Cascade Lake) which offers up to 3.9 GHz sustained single-core max turbo frequency. C2 offers VMs with 4 to 60 vCPUs and 4 GB of memory per vCPU.

H3 machine series

H3 VMs are powered by the 4th generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids), DDR5 memory, and Titanium offload processors.

H3 VMs offer the best price performance for compute-intensive high performance computing (HPC) workloads in Compute Engine. H3 VMs are single-threaded and are ideal for a variety of modeling and simulation workloads including computational fluid dynamics, crash safety, genomics, financial modeling, and general scientific and engineering computing. H3 VMs support compact placement, which is optimized for tightly-coupled applications that scale across multiple nodes.

The H3 series is available in one size, comprising an entire host server. To save on licensing costs, you can customize the number of visible cores, but you are charged the same price for the VM. H3 VMs can use the entire host network bandwidth and come with a default network bandwidth rate of up to 200 Gbps. However, the VM to internet bandwidth is limited to 1 Gbps.

Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is disabled for H3 VMs and can't be enabled. There is also no overcommitting to ensure optimal performance consistency.

H3 VMs are available on-demand, or with one- and three-year committed use discounts (CUDs). H3 VMs can be used with Google Kubernetes Engine.

H3 Limitations

The H3 machine series has the following restrictions:

• The H3 machine series is only available in a predefined machine type. Custom machine shapes aren't available.
• You can't use GPUs with H3 VMs.
• Outbound data transfer is limited to 1 Gbps.
• Persistent Disk and Google Cloud Hyperdisk performance is capped at 15,000 IOPS and 240 MBps throughput.
• H3 VMs don't support machine images.
• H3 VMs support only the NVMe storage interface.
• H3 VM images can't be used to create disks.
• H3 VMs don't support sharing disks between VMs, either in multi-writer mode or read-only mode.

H3 machine types

Machine types	vCPUs*	Memory (GB)	Default egress bandwidth (Gbps)†
h3-standard-88	88	352	Up to 200 Gbps

Supported disk types for H3

H3 VMs can use the following block storage types:

• Balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)

Disk and capacity limits

You can use a mixture of Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk volumes with a VM, but the following restrictions apply:

• The combined number of both Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes can't exceed 128 per VM.

• The maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:

  • For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs:

    • 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk or all Persistent Disk
    • 257 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk

  • For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs:

    • 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk
    • 512 TiB for a mixture of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk
    • 257 TiB for all Persistent Disk

For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk capacity limits per VM and Persistent Disk maximum capacity.

H3 storage limits are described in the following table:

	Maximum number of disks per VM
Machine types	All disk types *	All Hyperdisk types	Hyperdisk Balanced	Hyperdisk Throughput	Hyperdisk Extreme	Local SSD
h3-standard-88	128	64	8	64	0	Not supported

Network support for H3 VMs

H3 VMs require gVNIC network interfaces. H3 supports up to 200 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking.

Before migrating to H3 or creating H3 VMs, make sure that the operating system image that you use is fully supported for H3. Fully supported images include the updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your H3 VM is using an operating system with limited support, which includes an older version of the gVNIC driver, the VM might not be able to achieve the maximum network bandwidth for H3 VMs.

If you use a custom OS image with the H3 machine series, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.3.0 or later is recommended for use with H3 VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

C2D machine series

The C2D machine series provides the largest VM sizes and are best-suited for high performance computing (HPC). The C2D series also has the largest available last-level cache (LLC) cache per core.

The C2D machine series comes in different machine types ranging from 2 to 112 vCPUs, and offer up to 896 GB of memory. You can attach up to 3 TiB of Local SSD storage to these machine types for applications that require higher storage performance.

• C2D standard and C2D high-cpu machines serve existing compute-bound workloads including high-performance web servers, media transcoding, and gaming.
• C2D high-memory machines serve specialized workloads such as HPC and EDA, which need more memory.

The C2D series supports these compute-bound workloads by using the third generation AMD EPYC Milan platform.

The C2D series supports Confidential VM.

C2D Limitations

The C2D machine series has the following restrictions:

• You cannot use regional persistent disks.
• The C2D machine series is subject to different disk limits than the general-purpose and memory-optimized machine families.
• The C2D machine series is available only in select zones and regions on specific CPU processors.
• The C2D machine series doesn't support GPUs.
• The C2D machine series doesn't support sole-tenant nodes.

C2D machine types

Supported disk types for C2D

C2D VMs can use the following block storage types:

• Standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Local SSD

C2D VMs with Confidential Computing running Microsoft Windows with the NVMe disk interface have a disk attachment limitation of 16 disks. See Known issues for details.

Network support for C2D VMs

The C2D machine types with 32 or more vCPUS support higher network bandwidths of 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

C2 machine series

The C2 machine series provides full transparency into the architecture of the underlying server platforms, letting you fine-tune the performance. Machine types in this series offer much more computing power, and are generally more robust for compute-intensive workloads compared to N1 high-CPU machine types.

The C2 series comes in different machine types ranging from 4 to 60 vCPUs, and offers up to 240 GB of memory. You can attach up to 3 TiB of Local SSD storage to these VMs for applications that require higher storage performance.

This series also produces a greater than 40% performance improvement compared to the previous generation N1 machines and offer higher performance per thread and isolation for latency-sensitive workloads.

The C2 series enables the highest performance per core and the highest frequency for compute-bound workloads using Intel 3.9 GHz Cascade Lake processors. If you are looking to optimize workloads for single thread performance, particularly with respect to floating point, choose a machine type in this series to take advantage of AVX-512 capabilities only available on Intel.

C2 Limitations

The C2 machine series has the following restrictions:

• You cannot use regional persistent disks.
• The C2 machine series is subject to different disk limits than the general-purpose and memory-optimized machine families.
• The C2 machine series is available only in select zones and regions on specific CPU processors.
• The C2 machine series doesn't support GPUs.

C2 machine types

Machine types	vCPUs*	Memory (GB)	Default egress bandwidth (Gbps)†	Tier_1 egress bandwidth (Gbps)‡
c2-standard-4	4	16	Up to 10	N/A
c2-standard-8	8	32	Up to 16	N/A
c2-standard-16	16	64	Up to 32	N/A
c2-standard-30	30	120	Up to 32	Up to 50
c2-standard-60	60	240	Up to 32	Up to 100

Supported disk types for C2

C2 VMs can use the following block storage types:

• Standard Persistent Disk (pd-standard)
• Balanced Persistent Disk (pd-balanced)
• SSD (performance) Persistent Disk (pd-ssd)
• Local SSD

Machine types	Max number of Persistent Disk volumes per VM*	Max total disk size (TiB) across all disks	Local SSD
c2-standard-4	128	257	Yes
c2-standard-8	128	257	Yes
c2-standard-16	128	257	Yes
c2-standard-30	128	257	Yes
c2-standard-60	128	257	Yes

Network support for C2 VMs

The C2 machine types with 30 or more vCPUS support higher network bandwidths of 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

What's next

• Creating a VM instance
• VM instance pricing
• Configuring a VM with a high-bandwidth network