'HX' sub-family storage optimized VM size series

Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Windows VMs ✔️ Flexible scale sets ✔️ Uniform scale sets

The 'HX' family of VM size series are one of Azure's high-memory, high-performance computing (HPC) optimized VM instances. They're designed for memory-intensive workloads that require both large amounts of RAM and significant CPU performance, such as in-memory databases, big data analytics, and complex scientific simulations. Expansive memory and powerful CPUs on HX-series VMs provide the necessary resources to efficiently handle large datasets and perform rapid data processing. These VMs are designed for sectors like financial services, scientific research, and enterprise resource planning, where managing and analyzing large volumes of data in real-time is crucial for operational success and innovation.

Workloads and use cases

In-Memory Databases: HX-series VMs are excellent for hosting in-memory databases, which require extensive memory to maintain large datasets in RAM for ultra-fast processing and access.

Big Data Analytics: They can handle big data analytics applications that need to process vast amounts of data in memory to speed up analysis, which is critical for real-time decision-making.

Genomic Research: Genomics research often involves large-scale data analysis, where high memory capacity can significantly enhance performance by allowing more of the dataset to be held in memory, speeding up the analysis.

Financial Simulations: Financial institutions use HX-series VMs for high-frequency trading platforms and risk management simulations that require rapid processing of large data volumes to predict stock trends or calculate credit risks in real time.

ERP Systems: Large enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems benefit from the high memory and processing power of HX-series VMs to manage and process extensive enterprise data and support large numbers of concurrent users effectively.

Series in family

HX-series

HX-series VMs are optimized for workloads that require significant memory capacity with twice the memory capacity as HBv4. For example, workloads such as silicon design can use HX-series VMs to enable EDA customers targeting the most advanced manufacturing processes to run their most memory-intensive workloads. HX VMs feature up to 176 AMD EPYC™ 9V33X ("Genoa-X") CPU cores with AMD's 3D V-Cache, clock frequencies up to 3.7 GHz, and no simultaneous multithreading. HX-series VMs also provide 1.4 TB of RAM, 2.3 GB L3 cache. The 2.3 GB L3 cache per VM can deliver up to 5.7 TB/s of bandwidth to amplify up to 780 GB/s of bandwidth from DRAM, for a blended average of 1.2 TB/s of effective memory bandwidth across a broad range of customer workloads. The VMs also provide up to 12 GB/s (reads) and 7 GB/s (writes) of block device SSD performance. All HX-series VMs feature 400 Gb/s NDR InfiniBand from NVIDIA Networking to enable supercomputer-scale MPI workloads. These VMs are connected in a non-blocking fat tree for optimized and consistent RDMA performance. NDR continues to support features like Adaptive Routing and the Dynamically Connected Transport (DCT). This newest generation of InfiniBand also brings greater support for offload of MPI collectives, optimized real-world latencies due to congestion control intelligence, and enhanced adaptive routing capabilities. These features enhance application performance, scalability, and consistency, and their usage is recommended.

View the full HX-series page.

Part	Quantity Count Units	Specs SKU ID, Performance Units, etc.
Processor	24 - 176vCores	AMD EPYC™ 9V33X (Genoa-X)
Memory	1408GiB	780GBps
Data Disks	32Disks
Network	8vNICs	NVIDIA NDR Infiniband 400Gbps
Accelerators	None

Previous-generation HX family series

For older sizes, see previous generation sizes.

Other size information

List of all available sizes: Sizes

Pricing Calculator: Pricing Calculator

Information on Disk Types: Disk Types

Next steps

Learn more about how Azure compute units (ACU) can help you compare compute performance across Azure SKUs.

Check out Azure Dedicated Hosts for physical servers able to host one or more virtual machines assigned to one Azure subscription.

Learn how to Monitor Azure virtual machines.