Amazon Aurora R9g Instances (Graviton5) Are Now Available
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Introduction
On November 12, 2026, R9g, the memory-optimized instance class powered by Graviton5, became generally available (GA) on Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS.
In this article, I launch Aurora PostgreSQL on db.r9g.large in us-east-1. I will present the result of running SELECT version() via the Data API, along with a comparison of specifications and prices against R8g.
R8g (Graviton4) for Aurora was announced in November 2024.
M9g (Graviton5) for RDS for MySQL was announced in June 2026.
Verifying the Launch on Aurora PostgreSQL
The storage configuration is Standard, and I created one writer.
Creating the Cluster and Instance
I did not prepare an EC2 instance as a connection source. Instead, I enabled the Data API by specifying --enable-http-endpoint when creating the cluster, and ran SQL over HTTPS. The master password is managed in Secrets Manager by specifying --manage-master-user-password.
export AWS_REGION=us-east-1
aws rds create-db-cluster \
--db-cluster-identifier devio-r9g-verify \
--engine aurora-postgresql --engine-version 17.9 \
--master-username postgres --manage-master-user-password \
--enable-http-endpoint --storage-type aurora --no-deletion-protection
aws rds create-db-instance \
--db-instance-identifier devio-r9g-verify-1 \
--db-cluster-identifier devio-r9g-verify \
--db-instance-class db.r9g.large --engine aurora-postgresql \
--no-publicly-accessible
aws rds wait db-instance-available --db-instance-identifier devio-r9g-verify-1
I chose 17.9 as the engine version. In the documentation, the supported versions for R8g are given only as a lower bound, such as "17.4 or later," whereas R9g versions are listed one by one.
I used describe-orderable-db-instance-options to check which Aurora PostgreSQL versions allow db.r9g.large. The result was 32 versions, which matched the list in the documentation exactly, with nothing missing or extra.
Getting version()
I ran SELECT version() against the created cluster via the Data API.
CL=$(aws rds describe-db-clusters --db-cluster-identifier devio-r9g-verify --query 'DBClusters[0].DBClusterArn' --output text)
SEC=$(aws rds describe-db-clusters --db-cluster-identifier devio-r9g-verify --query 'DBClusters[0].MasterUserSecret.SecretArn' --output text)
aws rds-data execute-statement --resource-arn "$CL" --secret-arn "$SEC" \
--database postgres --sql 'SELECT version()' --output json
{
"records": [
[
{
"stringValue": "PostgreSQL 17.9 on aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc (GCC) 10.5.0, 64-bit"
}
]
],
"numberOfRecordsUpdated": 0
}
I was able to confirm that the CPU architecture is aarch64.
Comparison with R8g
Specifications
R9g comes in the same nine sizes as R8g (large to 48xlarge), and the vCPU and memory are the same for all sizes. EBS bandwidth and network bandwidth have increased, and the increase is largest for 48xlarge.
| Size | vCPU | Memory (GiB) | EBS bandwidth R8g (Mbps) | EBS bandwidth R9g (Mbps) | Network bandwidth R8g (Gbps) | Network bandwidth R9g (Gbps) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| large | 2 | 16 | Up to 10,000 | Up to 12,000 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 15 |
| xlarge | 4 | 32 | Up to 10,000 | Up to 12,000 | Up to 12.5 | Up to 15 |
| 2xlarge | 8 | 64 | Up to 10,000 | Up to 12,000 | Up to 15 | Up to 17 |
| 4xlarge | 16 | 128 | Up to 10,000 | Up to 12,000 | Up to 15 | Up to 17 |
| 8xlarge | 32 | 256 | 10,000 | 12,000 | 15 | 17 |
| 12xlarge | 48 | 384 | 15,000 | 18,000 | 22.5 | 25 |
| 16xlarge | 64 | 512 | 20,000 | 24,000 | 30 | 34 |
| 24xlarge | 96 | 768 | 30,000 | 36,000 | 40 | 50 |
| 48xlarge | 192 | 1,536 | 40,000 | 72,000 | 50 | 100 |
Prices
Prices are values from the AWS Price List. The conditions are us-east-1, Aurora PostgreSQL, Single-AZ, and On-Demand, in USD per hour. The Standard price is +0.51% compared with R8g for all nine sizes. For I/O-Optimized, it is +0.50% for all nine sizes.
| Size | R8g | R9g | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| large | 0.2760 | 0.2774 | +0.51% |
| xlarge | 0.5520 | 0.5548 | +0.51% |
| 2xlarge | 1.1040 | 1.1096 | +0.51% |
| 4xlarge | 2.2080 | 2.2192 | +0.51% |
| 8xlarge | 4.4160 | 4.4384 | +0.51% |
| 12xlarge | 6.6240 | 6.6576 | +0.51% |
| 16xlarge | 8.8320 | 8.8768 | +0.51% |
| 24xlarge | 13.2480 | 13.3152 | +0.51% |
| 48xlarge | 26.4960 | 26.6304 | +0.51% |
The price of EC2 R9g, under the conditions of us-east-1, Linux / Shared, and On-Demand, is +9.0% compared with R8g for all 11 sizes.
While the Aurora price rises by about 0.5%, AWS states in its announcement that, compared with the same size on Graviton4, performance improves by up to 30% and performance per on-demand price (price-performance) improves by up to 22%.
Summary
R9g, equipped with Graviton5 on the latest Nitro generation, is now available on Aurora.
R9g and R8g have the same vCPU and memory, and the price difference in us-east-1 is only about 0.5%.
AWS states in its announcement that price-performance improves by up to 22%, so we can expect cost-effective usage.
At present, availability is limited to four regions, including North America, so I look forward to expansion to other regions, including Tokyo.
