Machine families resource and comparison guide (original) (raw)

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Machine families resource and comparison guide

This document describes the machine families, machine series, and machine types that you can choose from to create a virtual machine (VM) instance or bare metal instance with the resources that you need. When you create a compute instance, you select a machine type from a machine family that determines the resources available to that instance.

There are several machine families you can choose from. Each machine family is further organized into machine series and predefined machine types within each series. For example, within the N2 machine series in the general-purpose machine family, you can select the n2-standard-4 machine type.

For information about machine series that supportSpot VMs (and preemptible VMs), seeCompute Engine instances provisioning models.

Note: This is a list of Compute Engine machine families. For a detailed explanation of each machine family, see the following pages:

• General-purpose —best price-performance ratio for a variety of workloads.
• Storage-optimized —best for workloads that are low in core usage and high in storage density.
• Compute-optimized —highest performance per core on Compute Engine and optimized for compute-intensive workloads.
• Memory-optimized —ideal for memory-intensive workloads, offering more memory per core than other machine families, with up to 12 TB of memory.
• Accelerator-optimized —ideal for massively parallelized Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) compute workloads, such as machine learning (ML) and high performance computing (HPC). This family is the best option for workloads that require GPUs.

Compute Engine terminology

This documentation uses the following terms:

• Machine family: A curated set of processor and hardware configurations optimized for specific workloads, for example, General-purpose, Accelerator-optimized, or Memory-optimized.
• Machine series: Machine families are further classified by series, generation, and processor type.
  • Each series focuses on a different aspect of computing power or performance. For example, the E series offers efficient VMs at a low cost, while the C series offer better performance.
  • The generation is denoted by an ascending number. For example, the N1 series within the general-purpose machine family is the older version of the N2 series. A higher generation or series number usually indicates newer underlying CPU platforms or technologies. For example, the M3 series, which runs on Intel Xeon Scalable Processor 3rd Generation (Ice Lake), is a newer generation than the M2 series, which runs on Intel Xeon Scalable Processor 2nd Generation (Cascade Lake).

    Generation	Intel	AMD	Arm
    4th generation machine series	N4, C4, X4, M4, A4	C4D	C4A, A4X
    3rd generation machine series	C3, H3, Z3, M3, A3	C3D	N/A
    2nd generation machine series	N2, E2, C2, M2, A2, G2	N2D, C2D, T2D, E2	T2A

• Machine type: Every machine series offers at least one machine type. Each machine type provides a set of resources for your compute instance, such as vCPUs, memory, disks, and GPUs. If a predefined machine type does not meet your needs, you can also create a custom machine type for some machine series.

The following sections describe the different machine types.

Predefined machine types

Predefined machine types come with a non-configurable amount of memory and vCPUs. Predefined machine types use a variety of vCPU to memory ratios:

• highcpu — from 1 to 3 GB memory per vCPU; typically, 2 GB memory per vCPU.
• standard — from 3 to 7 GB memory per vCPU; typically, 4 GB memory per vCPU.
• highmem — from 7 to 14 GB memory per vCPU; typically, 8 GB memory per vCPU.
• megamem — from 14 to 19 GB memory per vCPU
• hypermem — from 19 to 24 GB memory per vCPU; typically, 21 GB memory per vCPU
• ultramem — from 24 to 31 GB memory per vCPU

For example, a c3-standard-22 machine type has 22 vCPUs, and as astandard machine type, it also has 88 GB of memory.

Local SSD machine types

Local SSD machine types are a special predefined machine type. The machine type name ends in -lssd. When you create a compute instance using one of these machine types, Titanium SSDor Local SSD disks are automatically attached to the instance.

These machine types are available with the C4A, C4D, C3, and C3D machine series. Other machine series also support Local SSD disks but don't use a -lssd machine type. For more information about what machine types you can use with Titanium SSD or Local SSD disks, seeChoose a valid number of Local SSD disks.

Bare metal machine types

Bare metal machine types are a special predefined machine type. The machine type name ends in -metal. When you create a compute instance using one of these machine types, there is no hypervisor installed on the instance. You can attach disks to a bare metal instance, just as you would with a VM instance. Bare metal instances can be used in VPC networks and subnetworks in the same way as VM instances.

These machine types are available with the C4D (Preview), C3, Z3 (Preview), and X4 machine series.

Custom machine types

If none of the predefined machine types match your workload needs, you can create a VM instance with a custom machine type for theN and E machine seriesin the general-purpose machine family. .

Custom machine types cost slightly more to use compared to an equivalent predefined machine type. Also, there are limitations in the amount of memory and vCPUs that you can select for a custom machine type. The on-demand prices for custom machine types include a 5% premium over the on-demand and commitment prices for predefined machine types.

When creating a custom machine type, you can use the extended memory feature. Instead of using the default memory size based on the number of vCPUs you select, you can specify an amount of memory, up to the limit for the machine series.

For more information, seeCreate a VM with a custom machine type.

Shared-core machine types

The E2 and N1 series contain shared-core machine types. These machine types timeshare a physical core which can be a cost-effective method for running small, non-resource intensive apps.

• E2: offers 2 vCPUs for short periods of bursting.
• N1: offersf1-micro and g1-small shared-core machine types which have up to 1 vCPU available for short periods of bursting.

Machine family and series recommendations

The following tables provide recommendations for different workloads.

After you create a compute instance, you can use _rightsizing recommendations_to optimize resource utilization based on your workload. For more information, see Applying machine type recommendations for VMs.

General-purpose machine family guide

The general-purpose machine familyoffers several machine series with the best price-performance ratio for a variety of workloads.

Compute Engine offers general-purpose machine series that run on either x86 or Arm architecture.

x86

• The C4D machine series is available on the AMD EPYC Turin CPU platform and powered by Titanium. C4D has a greater max boost frequency as compared with C3D, with improved Instructions Per Clock (IPC) for faster database transactions. By leveraging Hyperdisk storage and Titanium networking, C4D demonstrates up to 56% higher queries per second on MySQL and 38% better performance on Redis workloads as compared to C3D. C4D instances are available with up to 384 vCPUs and 3 TB of DDR5 memory. C4D is available in highcpu (1.875 GB per vCPU), standard(3.875 GB per vCPU), and highmem (7.875 GB per vCPU) configurations.
• The C4 machine series is available on the Intel Emerald Rapids CPU platform and powered by Titanium. C4 machine types are optimized to deliver consistently high performance and scale up to 192 vCPUs at 1.5 TB of DDR5 memory. C4 is available in highcpu (2 GB per vCPU), standard(3.75 GB per vCPU), and highmem (7.75 GB per vCPU) configurations.
• The N4 machine series is available on the Intel Emerald Rapids CPU platform and powered byTitanium. N4 machine types are optimized for flexibility and cost with both predefined and custom shapes and can scale up to 80 vCPUs at 640 GB of DDR5 memory. N4 is available inhighcpu (2 GB per vCPU), standard (4 GB per vCPU), andhighmem (8 GB per vCPU) configurations.
• The N2 machine series has up to 128 vCPUs, 8 GB of memory per vCPU, and is available on the Intel Ice Lake and Intel Cascade Lake CPU platforms.
• The N2D machine series has up to 224 vCPUs, 8 GB of memory per vCPU, and is available on second generation AMD EPYC Rome and third generation AMD EPYC Milan platforms.
• The C3 machine series offers up to 176 vCPUs and 2, 4, or 8 GB of memory per vCPU on the Intel Sapphire Rapids CPU platform andTitanium. C3 instances are aligned with the underlying NUMA architecture to offer optimal, reliable, and consistent performance.
• The C3D machine series offers up to 360 vCPUs and 2, 4, or 8 GB of memory per vCPU on the AMD EPYC Genoa CPU platform andTitanium. C3D instances are aligned with the underlying NUMA architecture to offer optimal, reliable, and consistent performance.
• The E2 machine series has up to 32 virtual cores (vCPUs) with up to 128 GB of memory with a maximum of 8 GB per vCPU, and the lowest cost of all machine series. The E2 machine series has a predefined CPU platform, running either an Intel processor or the second generation AMD EPYC™ Rome processor. The processor is selected for you when you create the instance. This machine series provides a variety of compute resources for the lowest price on Compute Engine, especially when paired with committed-use discounts.
• The Tau T2D machine series provides an optimized feature set for scaling out. Each VM instance can have up to 60 vCPUs, 4 GB of memory per vCPU, and is available on third generation AMD EPYC Milan processors. The Tau T2D machine series doesn't use cluster-threading, so a vCPU is equivalent to an entire core.
• The N1 machine series VMs can have up to 96 vCPUs, up to 6.5 GB of memory per vCPU, and are available on Intel Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, and Skylake CPU platforms.

Arm

• The C4A machine series is the second machine series in Google Cloud to run on Arm processors and the first to run on Google Axion Processors, which support the Arm V9 architecture. C4A instances are powered by theTitanium IPU with disk and network offloads; this improves instance performance by reducing on-host processing.
  C4A instances provide up to 72 vCPUs with up to 8 GB of memory per vCPU in a single UMA domain. C4A offers -lssd machine types that come with up to 6 TiB ofTitanium SSD capacity. C4A instances don't use simultaneous multithreading (SMT). A vCPU in a C4A instance is equivalent to an entire physical core.
• The Tau T2A machine series is the first machine series in Google Cloud to run on Arm processors. Tau T2A machines are optimized to deliver compelling price for performance. Each VM can have up to 48 vCPUs with 4 GB of memory per vCPU. The Tau T2A machine series runs on a 64 core Ampere Altra processor with an Arm instruction set and an all-core frequency of 3 GHz. Tau T2A machine types support a single NUMA node and a vCPU is equivalent to an entire core.

Storage-optimized machine family guide

The storage-optimized machine familyis best suited for high-performance and flash-optimized workloads such as SQL, NoSQL, and vector databases, scale-out data analytics, data warehouses and search, and distributed file systems that need fast access to large amounts of data stored in local storage. The storage-optimized machine family is designed to provide high local storage throughput and IOPS at sub-millisecond latency.

• Z3 can have up to 176 vCPUs, 1,408 GB of memory, and 36 TiB of local Titanium SSD for VM instances. Z3 bare metal instances (Preview) have 192 vCPUs, 1,536 GB of memory, and 72 TiB of local Titanium SSD. Z3 runs on the Intel Xeon Scalable processor (code name Sapphire Rapids) with DDR5 memory andTitaniumoffload processors. Z3 brings together compute, networking, and storage innovations into one platform. Z3 instances are aligned with the underlying NUMA architecture to offer optimal, reliable, and consistent performance.

Compute-optimized machine family guide

The compute-optimized machine familyis optimized for running compute-bound applications by providing the highest performance per core.

• H3 instances offer 88 vCPUs and 352 GB of DDR5 memory. H3 instances run on the Intel Sapphire Rapids CPU platform and Titanium offload processors. H3 instances are aligned with the underlying NUMA architecture to offer optimal, reliable, and consistent performance. H3 delivers performance improvements for a wide variety of HPC workloads such as molecular dynamics, computational geoscience, financial risk analysis, weather modeling, frontend and backend EDA, and computational fluid dynamics.
• C2 instances offer up to 60 vCPUs, 4 GB of memory per vCPU, and are available on the Intel Cascade Lake CPU platform.
• C2D instances offer up to 112 vCPUs, up to 8 GB of memory per vCPU, and are available on the third generation AMD EPYC Milan platform.

Memory-optimized machine family guide

The memory-optimized machine familyhas machine series that are ideal for OLAP and OLTP SAP workloads, genomic modeling, electronic design automation, and your most memory intensive HPC workloads. This family offers more memory per core than any other machine family, with up to 32 TB of memory.

• X4 bare metal instances offer up to 1,920 vCPUs, with 17 GB of memory per vCPU. X4 has machine types with 16, 24, and 32 TB of memory, and is available on the Intel Sapphire Rapids CPU platform.
• M4 instances offer up to 224 vCPUs, with up to 26.5 GB of memory per vCPU, and are available on the Intel Emerald Rapids CPU platform.
• M3 instances offer up to 128 vCPUs, with up to 30.5 GB of memory per vCPU, and are available on the Intel Ice Lake CPU platform.
• M2 instances are available as 6 TB, 9 TB, and 12 TB machine types, and are available on the Intel Cascade Lake CPU platform.
• M1 instances offer up to 160 vCPUs, 14.9 GB to 24 GB of memory per vCPU, and are available on the Intel Skylake and Broadwell CPU platforms.

Accelerator-optimized machine family guide

The accelerator-optimized machine familyis ideal formassively parallelized Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) compute workloads, such as machine learning (ML) and high performance computing (HPC). This family is the optimal choice for workloads that require GPUs.

Arm

• A4X instances offer up to 140 vCPUs and up to 884 GB of memory. Each A4X machine type has 4 NVIDIA B200 GPUs attached to 2 NVIDIA Grace CPUs. A4X instances have a maximum network bandwidth of up to 2,000 GBps.

x86

• A4 instances offer up to 224 vCPUs and up to 3,968 GB of memory. Each A4 machine type has 8 NVIDIA B200 GPUs attached. A4 instances have a maximum network bandwidth of up to 3,600 Gbps and are available on the Intel Emerald Rapids CPU platform.
• A3 instances offer up to 224 vCPUs and up to 2,952 GB of memory. Each A3 machine type has either 1, 2, 4, or 8 NVIDIA H100 or 8 H200 GPUs attached. A3 instances have a maximum network bandwidth of up to 3,200 Gbps and are available on the following CPU platforms:
  • Intel Emerald Rapids - A3 Ultra
  • Intel Sapphire Rapids - A3 Mega, High, and Edge
• A2 instances offer 12 to 96 vCPUs, and up to 1,360 GB of memory. Each A2 machine type has either 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 NVIDIA A100 GPUs attached. A2 instances have a maximum network bandwidth of up to 100 Gbps and are available on the Intel Cascade Lake CPU platform.
• G2 instances offer 4 to 96 vCPUs and up to 432 GB of memory. Each G2 machine type has either 1, 2, 4, or 8 NVIDIA L4 GPUs attached. G2 instances have a maximum network bandwidth of up to 100 Gbps and are available on the Intel Cascade Lake CPU platform.

Use the following table to compare each machine family and determine which one is appropriate for your workload. If, after reviewing this section, you are still unsure which family is best for your workload, start with the general-purpose machine family. For details about all supported processors, see CPU platforms.

To learn how your selection affects the performance of disk volumes attached to your compute instances, see:

• Persistent Disk: Disk performance by machine type and vCPU count
• Google Cloud Hyperdisk: Hyperdisk performance limits

Compare the characteristics of different machine series, from C4A to G2. You can select specific properties in the Choose instance properties to compare field to compare those properties across all machine series in the following table.

GPUs and compute instances

GPUs are used to accelerate workloads, and are supported for A4X, A4, A3, A2, G2, and N1 instances. For instances that use A4X, A4, A3, A2, or G2 machine types, the GPUs are automatically attached when you create the instance. For instances that use N1 machine types, you can attach GPUs to the instance during or after instance creation. GPUs can't be used with any other machine series.

Instances with fewer GPUs attached are limited to a maximum number of vCPUs. In general, a higher number of GPUs lets you create instances with a higher number of vCPUs and memory. For more information, seeGPUs on Compute Engine.

What's next

• Learn how to create and start a VM
• Learn how to create a VM with a custom machine type.
• Complete the Quickstart using a Linux VM
• Complete the Quickstart using a Windows VM
• Learn more about attaching block storage to your VMs

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Last updated 2025-06-13 UTC.