General-purpose machine family for Compute Engine

This document describes the features of the Compute Engine general-purpose machine family, which has the best price-performance with the most flexible vCPU to memory ratios, and provides features that target most standard and cloud-native workloads.

The general-purpose machine family has predefined and custom machine types to align with your workload, depending on your requirements.

C4D is powered by the fifth generation AMD EPYC Turin processor and Titanium. These machine types have up to 384 vCPUs and 3,024 GB of DDR5 memory, a max-boost frequency of 4.1 GHz, and up to 200 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance. C4D also offers Local SSD (-lssd) machine types and bare metal (-metal) machine types.

C4A is powered by Google's Axion processor built on the Arm Neoverse V2 compute core. C4A provides standard, highcpu, and highmem machine types with up to 72 vCPUs, 576 GB DDR5 memory, 6 TiB of local Titanium SSD, and up to 100 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance. C4A also offers Local SSD (-lssd) machine types and a highmem bare metal (-metal) machine type with 96 vCPUs and 768 GB DDR5 memory.

C4 is powered by the sixth generation (code-named Granite Rapids) and fifth generation (code-named Emerald Rapids) Intel Xeon Scalable processors. C4 instances running on Granite Rapids offer a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 3.9 GHz and a max turbo frequency of 4.2 GHz, 2.2 TB of DDR5 memory, 18 TiB of Titanium SSD for C4. supports up to 200 Gbps of per VM Tier_1 networking performance. C4 also offers Local SSD (-lssd) machine types and bare metal (-metal) machine types.

N4D is powered by the fifth generation AMD EPYC Turin processor and Titanium. These machine types have up to 96 vCPUs and 768 GB of DDR5 memory, and a max-boost frequency of 4.1 GHz. N4D offers 50 Gbps of standard network bandwidth.

N4A is powered by Google's Axion processor built on the Arm Neoverse N3 compute core. N4A provides machine types of up to 64 vCPUs and 512 GB of DDR5 memory. N4A is available in standard, high-mem, high-cpu, and custom machine types with extended memory, and up to 50 Gbps of standard networking.

N4 is powered by the fifth generation Intel Xeon Scalable processor (code-named Emerald Rapids). N4 offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 2.9 GHz, 640 GB of DDR5 memory, and up to 50 Gbps of standard network bandwidth.

C3 is powered by fourth generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors and offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 3.0 GHz, 8 channels of DDR5 memory, and up to 200 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

C3D is powered by fourth generation AMD EPYC Genoa processors and offers a sustained, all-core turbo frequency of 3.3 GHz, 2,880 GB of DDR5 memory, and up to 200 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance.

For bare metal machine types, choose the C4, C4D, or C3 machine series.

All third and fourth generation general-purpose VMs support Titanium.

E2, E2 shared-core, N2, N2D, Tau T2A, and Tau T2D are second generation machine series in this family; N1 and its related shared-core machine types are the first generation machine series.

Machine series	Workloads
N4, N4A, N4D, N2, N2D, N1	Medium traffic web and application servers Containerized microservices Business intelligence applications Virtual desktops CRM applications Development and test environments Batch processing Storage and archive
C4A, C4, C4D, C3, C3D	High traffic web, app and ad servers Databases and caches Game servers Data analytics Media streaming and transcoding Network appliances CPU-based ML training and inference
E2	Low-traffic web servers Back office apps Containerized microservices Small databases Virtual desktops Development and test environments
Tau T2A, Tau T2D	Scale-out workloads Web servers Containerized microservices Media transcoding Large-scale Java applications

C4D machine series

C4D VMs are powered by the fifth generation AMD EPYC Turin processor and Titanium. C4D delivers a 30% performance boost over C3D on the estimated SPECrate®2017_int_base benchmark, which lets you scale performance with fewer resources, thereby optimizing your costs.

C4D is designed to run workloads including web, app and game servers, AI inference, video streaming, and data centric applications like analytics, as well as relational and in-memory databases.

For databases, C4D delivers 55% more queries per second for MySQL and 35% higher operations per second for Memorystore for Redis workloads compared to C3D due to its higher core frequency (up to 4.1 GHz) and improved Instructions Per Clock (IPC).

For web-serving workloads, AMD EPYC Turin's advancements in L3-cache efficiency and branch prediction enable up to 80% higher throughput per vCPU with C4D.

In summary, the C4D machine series has the following features:

• Powered by the AMD EPYC Turin CPU and Titanium.
• Supports up to 384 vCPUs and 3,024 GB of DDR5 memory.
• Supports up to 12 TiB of local Titanium SSD disks.
• Offers predefined machine types that range in size from 2 to 384 vCPUs.
• Supports up to 3,024 GB of DDR5 memory for VM instances and up to 3,072 GB of memory for bare metal instances.
• Supports consumption options like on-demand, Spot VMs, and future reservations.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports per VM Tier_1 networking performance with up to 200 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports only Hyperdisk volumes.
• Supports Confidential VM with AMD SEV, excluding bare metal instances and configurations with more than 255 vCPUs.
• Supports resource-based and flexible committed use discounts (CUDs).
• Supports compact and spread placement policies.

C4D machine types

C4D VMs are available as predefined configurations in standard, highcpu, and highmem sizes ranging from 2 vCPU to 384 vCPUs and up to 3,024 GB of memory.

To use Titanium SSD with C4D, create your instance using the -lssd variant of the C4D machine types. Selecting this machine type creates an instance of the specified size with Titanium SSD partitions attached. You can't attach Titanium SSD volumes separately.

To create a bare metal instance with C4D, use one of the following machine types:

• c4d-standard-384-metal
• c4d-highcpu-384-metal
• c4d-highmem-384-metal

C4D doesn't support custom machine types.

Regional availability for C4D instances

For C4D VMs, you can view the available regions and zones in the Available regions and zones table, as follows:

• To view all the zones where you can create a C4D VM, in the Select a machine series menu, select C4D.
• You can also use the Select a location menu to limit the results to a geographical area.

For regional availability of C4D bare metal instances, see Bare metal instances on Compute Engine.

Supported disk types for C4D

C4D VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following Hyperdisk block storage:

• Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced)
• Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme)
• Hyperdisk Throughput (hyperdisk-throughput)
• Local Titanium SSD (added automatically with -lssd machine types)

C4D doesn't support Persistent Disk.

Disk and capacity limits

You can attach a mixture of different Hyperdisk types to an instance, but the maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:

• For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs: 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk

• For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs: 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk

For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk size and attachment limits.

C4D storage limits are described in the following table:

Network support for C4D instances

The following network interface drivers are required:

• C4D VM instances require gVNIC.
• C4D bare metal instances require the Intel IDPF LAN PF device driver.

C4D supports up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and up to 200 Gbps with per VM Tier_1 networking performance for VM and bare metal instances.

Before migrating to C4D or creating C4D VMs or bare metal instances, make sure that the operating system image that you use supports the IDPF network driver for bare metal instances or the gVNIC driver for VM instances. To get the best possible performance on C4D VMs, choose an OS image that supports both "Tier_1 Networking" and "200 Gbps network bandwidth". These images include an updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your C4D VM is using an operating system with an older version of gVNIC driver, this is still supported but the VM might experience suboptimal performance such as less network bandwidth or higher latency.

If you use a custom OS image to create a C4D VM, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.4.2 or later is recommended for use with C4D VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

Maintenance experience for C4D instances

During the lifespan of a virtual machine (VM) instance, the host machine that your instance runs undergoes multiple host events. A host event can include the regular maintenance of Compute Engine infrastructure, or in rare cases, a host error. Compute Engine also applies some non-disruptive lightweight upgrades for the hypervisor and network in the background.

The C4D machine series offers the following features related to host maintenance:

Machine type	Typical scheduled maintenance event frequency	Maintenance behavior	Advanced notification	On-demand maintenance	Simulate maintenance
c4d-*-lssd	Minimum of 30 days	Live migrate	7 days	Yes	Yes
c4d-*-384	Minimum of 30 days	Live migrate	7 days	Yes	Yes
All others	Minimum of 30 days	Live migrate	7 days	No	Yes

The maintenance frequencies shown in the previous table are approximations, not guarantees. Compute Engine might occasionally perform maintenance more frequently.

C4A machine series

C4A VMs are powered by Google's first Arm Axion™ processor. C4A provides machine types with up to 72 vCPUs and 576 GB of DDR5 memory, and 6 TiB of local Titanium SSD. C4A is available in standard, highmem, and highcpu machine types. It also offers -lssd variants for Titanium SSD and a highmem bare metal machine type with 96 vCPUs and 768 GB of DDR5 memory. C4A uses Google Cloud's latest generation of Google Cloud Hyperdisk storage options and Titanium SSD. C4A offers up to 50 Gbps of standard network performance, and up to 100 Gbps per VM Tier_1 networking performance for your instances.

C4A VMs are placed within a single node with Uniform Memory Access (UMA) and also support sole tenant nodes to deliver consistent performance.

In summary, the C4A machine series has the following features:

• Is powered by the Google Axion CPU and Titanium.
• Supports multiple predefined machine types with up to 72 vCPUs and 576 GB of DDR5 memory.
• Supports up to 6 TiB of local Titanium SSD disks.
• Supports highmem bare metal instances with 96 vCPUs and 768 GB of DDR5 memory.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 50 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports per VM Tier_1 networking performance with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports Hyperdisk only.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based and flexible committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports the performance monitoring unit (PMU).
• Doesn't support compact placement policies.
• Doesn't support suspend with C4A instances that have attached Titanium SSD disks.

For information about migrating to Arm VMs, read the Arm on Compute document.

C4A machine types

C4A VMs are available as predefined configurations in sizes ranging from 1 vCPU to 72 vCPUs and up to 576 GB of memory.

• standard: 4 GB memory per vCPU
• highcpu: 2 GB memory per vCPU
• highmem: 8 GB memory per vCPU

To use Titanium SSD with C4A, create your VM using the -lssd variant of the C4A machine types. Selecting this machine type creates a VM of the specified size with Titanium SSD partitions attached. You can't attach Titanium SSD volumes separately.

You can create a bare metal instance with a c4a-highmem-96-metal machine type.

C4A doesn't support custom machine types.

Supported disk types for C4A

C4A VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following Hyperdisk block storage:

C4A doesn't support Persistent Disk.

Disk and capacity limits

You can attach a mixture of different Hyperdisk types to an instance, but the maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:

• For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs: 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk

• For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs: 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk

For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk size and attachment limits.

Network support for C4A instances

The following network interface drivers are required:

• C4A VM instances require gVNIC network interfaces.
• C4A bare metal instances require the Intel IDPF LAN PF device driver.

C4A supports up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth for standard networking and bare metal instances.

Before migrating to C4A or creating C4A VMs or bare metal instances, make sure that the operating system image that you use supports the IDPF network driver for bare metal instances or the gVNIC driver for VM instances. To get the best possible performance on C4A VMs, choose an OS image that supports both "Tier_1 Networking" and "100 Gbps network bandwidth". These images include an updated gVNIC driver, even if the guest OS shows the gve driver version as 1.0.0. If your C4A VM is using an operating system with an older version of gVNIC driver, this is still supported but the VM might experience suboptimal performance such as less network bandwidth or higher latency.

If you use a custom OS image to create a C4A VM, you can manually install the most recent gVNIC driver. The gVNIC driver version v1.4.2 or later is recommended for use with C4A VMs. Google recommends using the latest gVNIC driver version to benefit from additional features and bug fixes.

Maintenance experience for C4A instances

During the lifespan of a virtual machine (VM) instance, the host machine that your instance runs undergoes multiple host events. A host event can include the regular maintenance of Compute Engine infrastructure, or in rare cases, a host error. Compute Engine also applies some non-disruptive lightweight upgrades for the hypervisor and network in the background.

The C4A machine series offers the following features related to host maintenance:

Machine type	Typical scheduled maintenance event frequency	Maintenance behavior	Advanced notification	On-demand maintenance
c4a-*-lssd	Minimum of 30 days	Live migrate	7 days	Yes
c4a-*-metal	Minimum of 30 days	Terminate	7 days	Yes
All others	Minimum of 30 days	Live migrate	7 days	No

The maintenance frequencies shown in the previous table are approximations, not guarantees. Compute Engine might occasionally perform maintenance more frequently.

C4 machine series

C4 VMs are powered by 6th generation (code-named Granite Rapids) or 5th generation (code-named Emerald Rapids) Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Titanium. C4 Local SSD (-lssd) and bare metal (-metal) instances, as well as instances with 144 or 288 vCPUs, use the 6th generation Intel Granite Rapids processor. All other instances use the 5th generation Intel Emerald Rapids processor.

The C4 machine series is designed to deliver price-performance and enterprise-grade reliability along with a maintenance experience for your most demanding workloads. C4 instances are ideal for web and app serving, game servers, databases and caches, video streaming, data analytics, network appliances, and CPU-based ML inference.

C4 VMs are designed to achieve maximum performance from single-core turbo boosting. For more consistent vCPU performance, disable vCPU boosting and limit the vCPUs to the sustainable all-core turbo frequency. You can do this by setting turboMode=ALL_CORE_MAX in the AdvancedMachineFeatures settings.

In summary, the C4 machine series:

• Is powered by the 6th generation Intel Granite Rapids or 5th generation Intel Emerald Rapids processor and Titanium IPU.
• Lets you switch between core-boosting performance and steady all-core turbo performance for your vCPUs.
• Supports up to 288 vCPUs and 2.2 TB of DDR5 memory.
• Supports up to 18 TiB of local Titanium SSD disks.
• Supports compact and spread placement policies.
• Offers multiple predefined machine types.
• Supports standard network configuration with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports per VM Tier_1 networking performance with up to 200 Gbps bandwidth.
• Supports Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), a built-in accelerator that significantly improves the performance of deep-learning training and inference on the CPU.
• Supports the following discount and consumption options:
  • Resource-based and flexible committed use discounts (CUDs)
  • Spot VMs
  • Reservations
• Supports the performance monitoring unit (PMU).
• Supports up to 192 vCPUs for Confidential VM with Intel TDX using Granite Rapids processors. Intel TDX support isn't available on Emerald Rapids processors.

C4 Limitations

• You can't dynamically add or remove a disk when using Windows Server 25.
• You can't dynamically add or remove multiple disks when using Windows Server 25 or Windows 11.
• C4 VM shapes powered by Granite Rapids might experience lower networking performance on Windows 11 and Debian 11 OS images.

C4 machine types

C4 VMs are available as predefined configurations in sizes ranging from 2 vCPUs to 288 vCPUs and up to 2,232 GB of memory.

• standard: 3.75 GB memory per vCPU
• highcpu: 2 GB memory per vCPU
• highmem: 7.75 GB memory per vCPU

To use Titanium SSD with C4, create your instance using the -lssd variant of the C4 machine types. Selecting this machine type creates an instance of the specified size with Titanium SSD partitions attached. You can't attach Titanium SSD volumes separately.

To create a bare metal instance with C4, use one of the following machine types:

• c4-standard-288-metal
• c4-standard-288-lssd-metal
• c4-highmem-288-metal
• c4-highmem-288-lssd-metal

The maximum number of NUMA nodes for C4 running on the Emerald Rapids CPU platform is 4. For the Granite Rapids CPU platform, the maximum number of NUMA nodes is 6."

C4 doesn't support custom machine types.

Supported disk types for C4

C4 VMs support only the NVMe disk interface and can use the following Hyperdisk block storage:

C4 doesn't support Persistent Disk. When upgrading to a newer machine series, to migrate your Persistent Disk resources to Hyperdisk, see Move your workload from an existing VM to a new VM.

Disk and capacity limits

You can attach a mixture of different Hyperdisk types to an instance, but the maximum total disk capacity (in TiB) across all disk types can't exceed:

• For machine types with less than 32 vCPUs: 257 TiB for all Hyperdisk

• For machine types with 32 or more vCPUs: 512 TiB for all Hyperdisk

For details about the capacity limits, see Hyperdisk size and attachment limits.