i3.large as an EKS node
2 vCPU15.25 GiBx86_64Intel Xeon E5-2686 v4 (Broadwell)AWS us-east-1I3 High I/O Large
Where the i3.large goes
Default EKS setup: EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit).
CPU1.73 of 2 vCPU left for your pods
Memory14.30 GiB of 15.25 GiB left for your pods
your podsDaemonSets (200m, 300 MiB assumed)kubelet reservedeviction
29max pods per node
$113.88on demand / month · $0.1560/h
$27.62spot / month (varies)
i3.large EKS max pods and allocatable memory — quick answers
- How many pods can a i3.large run as a node with EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit)? Up to 29; kubelet keeps 674 MiB of memory and 70m CPU, leaving 14.59 GiB and 1.93 vCPU for pods.
- How many pods can a i3.large run as a node with EKS, prefix delegation? Up to 110; kubelet keeps 1565 MiB of memory and 70m CPU, leaving 13.72 GiB and 1.93 vCPU for pods.
- How many 500m / 1 GiB pods fit? 3 per node after DaemonSets; 4 nodes for 10 replicas, about $455.52/month on demand.
What kubelet reserves on i3.large
| Setup | Max pods | kube-reserved CPU | Memory reserved + eviction | Allocatable CPU | Allocatable memory | Memory usable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit) secondary IPs per ENI | 29 | 70m | 574 Mi + 100 Mi | 1.93 | 14.59 GiB | 95.7% |
| EKS, prefix delegation ENABLE_PREFIX_DELEGATION=true | 110 | 70m | 1465 Mi + 100 Mi | 1.93 | 13.72 GiB | 90.0% |
How these numbers are computed: reservation formulas. How many subnet IPs a i3.large takes with the VPC CNI: EKS max pods and IP calculator. Check a live node with kubectl describe node → Allocatable.
How many pods fit on one i3.large
Assumes DaemonSets (CNI, kube-proxy, log and metrics agents) request 200m CPU, 300 Mi and 3 pods per node. Try your own numbers in the node calculator.
| Pod requests (CPU / memory) | EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit) | EKS, prefix delegation | $ per pod / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100m / 128 Mi | 17 | 17 | $6.70 |
| 250m / 256 Mi | 6 | 6 | $18.98 |
| 250m / 512 Mi | 6 | 6 | $18.98 |
| 500m / 512 Mi | 3 | 3 | $37.96 |
| 500m / 1024 Mi | 3 | 3 | $37.96 |
| 1000m / 1024 Mi | 1 | 1 | $113.88 |
| 1000m / 2048 Mi | 1 | 1 | $113.88 |
| 2000m / 4096 Mi | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4000m / 8192 Mi | 0 | 0 | — |
Similar EKS node types
| Type | vCPU | GiB | Alloc CPU | Alloc memory | Max pods | $/month | $ per alloc GiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| r4.large | 2 | 15.25 | 1.93 | 14.59 GiB | 29 | $97.09 | $6.65 |
| r6g.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $73.58 | $4.80 |
| r7g.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $78.18 | $5.10 |
| r5a.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $82.49 | $5.38 |
| r6a.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $82.78 | $5.40 |
| r6gd.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $84.10 | $5.48 |
| r8g.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $86.01 | $5.61 |
| r5.large | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 15.34 GiB | 29 | $91.98 | $6.00 |
Closest match on other clouds
| Type | vCPU | GiB | Alloc CPU | Alloc memory | Max pods | $/month | $ per alloc GiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c4d-highmem-2 | 2 | 15 | 1.93 | 12.40 GiB | 110 | $88.85 | $7.16 |
| c4-highmem-2 | 2 | 15 | 1.93 | 12.40 GiB | 110 | $93.71 | $7.56 |
| c4n-highmem-2 | 2 | 15 | 1.93 | 12.40 GiB | 110 | $149.94 | $12.09 |
| e2-highmem-2 | 2 | 16 | 1.93 | 13.30 GiB | 110 | $65.99 | $4.96 |
| e2psv6 | 2 | 16 | 1.90 | 11.90 GiB | 250 | $67.31 | $5.65 |
| e2psv5 | 2 | 16 | 1.90 | 11.90 GiB | 250 | $73.73 | $6.19 |