Compute - Dedicated CPU Instances

Virtual machines that provide dedicated CPU resources. Ideal for production and CPU-intensive workloads.

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Dedicated CPU Compute Instances are virtual machines that provide you with dedicated CPU resources. Their vCPU cores are guaranteed (and, thus, competition-free) so there are no surprises or CPU-related performance degradation. This enables you to run your production applications with confidence that your performance won’t be impacted by others. These Compute Instances are CPU-omptimized and can sustain CPU resource usage at 100% for as long as your workloads need.

Dedicated CPU plans are ideal for nearly all production applications and CPU-intensive workloads, including high traffic websites, video encoding, machine learning, and data processing. If your application would benefit from dedicated CPU cores as well as a larger amounts of memory, see High Memory Compute Instances.

Dedicated Competition-Free Resources

A Dedicated CPU Compute Instance provides entire vCPU cores accessible only to you. Because the vCPU cores are not shared, no other Compute Instances can utilize them. Your instance never has to wait for another process, enabling your software to run at peak speed and efficiency. This allows you to run workloads that require full-duty work (100% CPU all day, every day) at peak performance.

Upgrading from a Shared CPU Instance

Moving from a Shared CPU Instance to a Dedicated CPU Instance is a seamless process that can positively impact your applications and users. Review the Upgrading from Shared to Dedicated CPU Instances guide to learn more about the differences between Shared and Dedicated CPU plans and when each one might be appropriate. This guide also shows you how to investigate your CPU performance to determine if your application is experiencing resource contention on a Shared CPU Compute Instance. If you wish to upgrade, reference the Resizing a Linode guide for more details on resizing your Linode to a different plan type.

Dedicated CPU Compute Instances are suitable for almost any workload that requires consistently high performant CPU resources. This includes:

  • Production websites and e-commerce sites
  • Applications that required 100% sustained CPU usage.
  • Applications that might be impacted by resource contention.
  • CI/CD toolchains and build servers
  • Game servers (like Minecraft or Team Fortress)
  • Audio and video transcoding
  • Big data (and data analysis)
  • Scientific computing
  • Machine learning and AI
  • High Traffic Databases (Galera, PostgreSQL with Replication Manager, MongoDB using Replication Sets)
  • Replicated or Distributed Filesystems (GlusterFS, DRBD)

For more details and use cases, see the Use Cases for Dedicated CPU Instances guide.

Availability

Dedicated CPU instances are available across all regions.

Plans and Pricing

ResourceAvailable Plans
vCPU cores2-64 cores
Memory4 GB - 512 GB
Storage80 GB - 7200 GB
Outbound Network Transfer4 TB - 12 TB
Outbound Network Bandwidth4 Gbps - 12 Gbps

Pricing starts at $30 for a Dedicated CPU Compute Instance with 2 vCPU cores, 4GB memory, and 80GB SSD storage. Review the Pricing page for additional plans and their associated costs. See the Comparison of Compute Instances section below to learn more about other Instance types.

Additional Technical Specifications

In addition to the resources allocated to each available plan (outlined above), Dedicated CPU Compute Instances have the following specifications:

Services Included at No Extra Cost

Linode bundles the following services with all Compute Instances:

Complementary Paid Services

To help build and manage your applications, consider complementing your Compute Instance with the following compatible services:

Comparison of Compute Instances

Instance TypeCPUOverview
Shared CPU InstanceShared1 GB - 192 GB Memory, 1 - 32 vCPUs, 25 GB - 2840 GB Storage
Starting at $5/mo ($0.0075/hour)

Offers a balanced array of resources coupled with shared CPUs, which keeps costs down while still supporting a wide variety of cloud applications.

Best for development servers, staging servers, low traffic web applications, and almost any modern web application.
Dedicated CPU InstanceDedicated4 GB - 512 GB Memory, 2 - 64 vCPUs, 80 GB - 7200 GB Storage
Starting at $30/mo ($0.045/hour)

Equipped with Dedicated CPUs, which provide competition free guaranteed CPU resources. Perfectly balanced for most production applications.

Best for production websites, enterprise applications, high traffic databases, and any application that requires 100% sustained CPU usage.
High Memory InstanceDedicated24 GB - 300 GB Memory, 2 - 16 vCPUs, 20 GB - 340 GB Storage
Starting at $60/mo ($0.09/hour)

Optimized for memory-intensive applications and equipped with Dedicated CPUs, which provide competition free guaranteed CPU resources.

Best for in-memory databases, in-memory caching systems, big data processing, and any production application that requires a large amount of memory while keeping costs down.
GPU InstanceDedicated32 GB - 128 GB Memory, 8 - 24 vCPUs, 640 GB - 2560 GB Storage
Starting at $1000/mo ($1.50/hour)

The only instance type that’s equipped with Nvidia Quadro RTX 6000 GPUs (up to 4) for on demand execution of complex processing workloads.

Best for applications that require massive amounts of parallel processing power, including machine learning, AI, graphics processing, and big data analysis.

See Choosing a Compute Instance Type and Plan for a full comparison.

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