--- name: vpc-vsi-profile-details-general-purpose-gen3 title: General purpose instance profiles - Intel Gen 3 description: The general purpose 3rd generation virtual server profiles (balanced, compute, and memory) are built atop the 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. This generation provides NUMA pinning and increased overall instance throughput up to 200 Gbps. These profiles also include secure boot virtual servers as an option. last-updated: 2026-07-01 --- > ## Documentation Index > The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?format=markdown > The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt > Use these files to discover more information as needed. # General purpose instance profiles - Intel Gen 3 {: #general-purpose-vsi-profiles-gen3-intel} The general purpose 3rd generation virtual server profiles (balanced, compute, and memory) are built atop the 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. This generation provides NUMA pinning and increased overall instance throughput up to 200 Gbps. These profiles also include secure boot virtual servers as an option. {: shortdesc} The 3rd generation general-purpose virtual server profiles can also be paired with a corresponding dedicated host. This solution allows for single-tenant hypervisors that run workloads from a single IBM Cloud® account. ## Operating Systems {: #general-purpose-os-gen3} - Linux - Windows ## Processor Generation {: #general-purpose-processor-gen3} - Intel 8474C - 4th Generation Xeon® Scalable processor ## Availability {: #general-purpose-availability-gen3} - Status: Generally available - Regions: All ## Capabilities {: #general-purpose-capabilities-gen3} - Core type: Dedicated - Dedicated host: Yes - Hyperthreading: Yes (SMT-2) - Secure boot: Yes, select profiles - Confidential computing: No - Live migration: Yes - Instance storage: Yes - NUMA Pinning: Yes - NIC capabilities: - Max single NIC throughput: up to 32 Gbps - Bandwidth pooling: No - [Volume bandwidth allocation method](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/vpc?topic=vpc-block-storage-bandwidth&format=markdown#attached-block-vol-bandwidth): `weighted` by default; it can be updated to `pooled`. ## VM Configuration {: #general-purpose-vm-config-gen3} - Hardware type: i440fx - Utilizes Q35 hardware type when it's running in secure boot mode - Cloud networking: virtio - Block boot volume: virtio - Exception: vscsi for most Windows-based instances. However, Windows instances that run on second-generation storage volumes, and Windows instances with secure boot enabled that run Windows Server 2022 or newer, use virtio. - Block data volumes: virtio - Instance storage: virtio ## Instance profiles {: #general-purpose-profiles-gen3-intel} ### Balanced {: #balanced-profiles-gen3-intel} | Profile | vCPUs / Cores / NUMA Domains | Memory (GiB) | Bandwidth cap (Gbps) | Instance storage (Qty x GB) | | ------------- | ---------------------------- | ------------ | -------------------- | --------------------------- | | bx3d-2x10 | 2 / 1 / 1 | 10 | 4 | 1x65 | | bx3d-4x20 | 4 / 2 / 1 | 20 | 8 | 1x130 | | bx3d-8x40 | 8 / 4 / 1 | 40 | 16 | 1x260 | | bx3d-16x80 | 16 / 8 / 1 | 80 | 32 | 1x520 | | bx3d-24x120 | 24 / 12 / 1 | 120 | 48 | 1x780 | | bx3d-32x160 | 32 / 16 / 2 | 160 | 64 | 2x520 | | bx3d-48x240 | 48 / 24 / 2 | 240 | 96 | 2x780 | | bx3d-64x320 | 64 / 32 / 2 | 320 | 128 | 2x1024 | | bx3d-96x480 | 96 / 48 / 2 | 480 | 192 | 2x1560 | | bx3d-128x640 | 128 / 64 / 2 | 640 | 200 | 2x2080 | | bx3d-176x880 | 176 / 88 / 2 | 880 | 200 | 2x2860 | {: caption="Balanced instance profile options, Gen 3 Intel" caption-side="bottom"} ### Compute {: #compute-profiles-gen3-intel} | Profile | vCPUs / Cores / NUMA domains | Memory (GiB) | Bandwidth cap (Gbps) | Instance storage (Qty x GB) | | ------------ | ---------------------------- | ------------ | -------------------- | --------------------------- | | cx3d-2x5 | 2 / 1 / 1 | 5 | 4 | 1x65 | | cx3d-4x10 | 4 / 2 / 1 | 10 | 8 | 1x130 | | cx3d-8x20 | 8 / 4 / 1 | 20 | 16 | 1x260 | | cx3d-16x40 | 16 / 8 / 1 | 40 | 32 | 1x520 | | cx3d-24x60 | 24 / 12 / 1 | 60 | 48 | 1x780 | | cx3d-32x80 | 32 / 16 / 2 | 80 | 64 | 2x520 | | cx3d-48x120 | 48 / 24 / 2 | 120 | 96 | 2x780 | | cx3d-64x160 | 64 / 32 / 2 | 160 | 128 | 2x1024 | | cx3d-96x240 | 96 / 48 / 2 | 240 | 192 | 2x1560 | | cx3d-128x320 | 128 / 64 / 2 | 320 | 200 | 2x2080 | | cx3d-176x440 | 176 / 88 / 2 | 440 | 200 | 2x2860 | {: caption="Compute instance profile options, Gen 3 Intel" caption-side="bottom"} ### Memory {: #memory-profiles-gen3-intel} | Profile | vCPUs / Cores / NUMA domains | Memory (GiB) | Bandwidth cap (Gbps) | Instance storage (Qty x GB) | | ------------- | ------------- | ------------ | -------------------- | --------------------------- | | mx3d-2x20 | 2 / 1 / 1 | 20 | 4 | 1x65 | | mx3d-4x40 | 4 / 2 / 1 | 40 | 8 | 1x130 | | mx3d-8x80 | 8 / 4 / 1 | 80 | 16 | 1x260 | | mx3d-16x160 | 16 / 8 / 1 | 160 | 32 | 1x520 | | mx3d-24x240 | 24 / 12 / 1 | 240 | 48 | 1x780 | | mx3d-32x320 | 32 / 16 / 2 | 320 | 64 | 2x520 | | mx3d-48x480 | 48 / 24 / 2 | 480 | 96 | 2x780 | | mx3d-64x640 | 64 / 32 / 2 | 640 | 128 | 2x1024 | | mx3d-96x960 | 96 / 48 / 2 | 960 | 192 | 2x1560 | | mx3d-128x1280 | 128 / 64 / 2 | 1280 | 200 | 2x2080 | | mx3d-176x1760 | 176 / 88 / 2 | 1760 | 200 | 2x2860 | {: caption="Memory instance profile options, Gen 3 Intel" caption-side="bottom"} ## Limits {: #general-purpose-vsi-limits-gen3} An instance has a limit for the number of volumes and virtual network interfaces that can be attached. This limit is based on the size of the instance. | Number of vCPUs | Max volumes | Max vNICs | | --------------- | ----------- | --------- | | 2-16 | 12 | 5 | | 17-48 | 12 | 10 | | 49+ | 12 | 15 | {: caption="General purpose profile family limits for vCPU, maximum volumes, and maximum network interfaces" caption-side="bottom"} ### Boot volume profiles {: #general-purpose-volume-profiles} Only first-generation volumes from the tiered and custom volume profile families can be used as boot volumes for the Intel Gen 3 instances if secure boot is needed. Second-generation boot volumes with the `sdp` profile do not support secure boot. ## Dedicated host profiles {: #general-purpose-dh-profiles-gen3} Dedicated hosts allow users to provision a single-tenant host server and then provision virtual server instances of the corresponding family on the dedicated host. | Profile | vCPUs / Cores | Memory (GiB) | Instance storage | Sockets per host (NUMA) | Supported instance types | | ------------------ | ------------- | ------------ | ---------------- | ----------------------- | ------------------------ | | bx3d-host-176x880 | 176 / 88 | 608 | 2x 3.2 TB | 2 | bx3d (all) | | cx3d-host-176x440 | 176 / 88 | 608 | 2x 3.2 TB | 2 | cx3d (all) | | mx3d-host-176x1760 | 176 / 88 | 1760 | 2x 3.2 TB | 2 | mx3d (all) | {: caption="General purpose dedicated host profile options, Gen 3 Intel" caption-side="bottom"}