
    AWS conducted performance tests showing that disabling hyper-threading on SQL Server EC2 instances can reduce licensing costs by 33-43% without significantly impacting database performance.


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The article discusses optimizing CPUs for SQL Server workloads on AWS EC2 instances, focusing on how disabling hyper-threading or reducing core count can significantly reduce licensing costs without substantially impacting performance.
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<li>Tested multiple memory-optimized instance types (r7i, r7a, x2idn, x2iedn)</li>
<li>Used HammerDB benchmarking tool with OLTP-like workloads</li>
<li>Disabling hyper-threading resulted in 33-43% cost savings</li>
<li>For r7a instances, reducing cores by 50-75% yielded up to 64% cost reduction</li>
<li>Performance remained relatively consistent across different configurations</li>
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Key recommendation: Carefully disable CPU cores or hyper-threading to reduce licensing costs, but always test with your specific workload to ensure performance remains acceptable.
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