A100 vs V100: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: pick the A100 when your model or framework expects BF16, or you need INT4-quantized serving kernels (AWQ/GPTQ/Marlin-class). Pick the V100 when you're running an FP16/FP32-only legacy workload and V100 pricing or availability works for you.
The A100 has 80 GB of VRAM; the V100 has 16 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. A100 from $1.10/GPU/hr; V100 from $0.088/GPU/hr. The V100 is 92% cheaper at the entry rate.
A100
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
V100
Good for inference workloads on older-generation hardware
Last updated: 2026-10-10 17:56:59 UTCRefreshes hourly
Specs side by side
| Spec | A100 | V100 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 80 GB | 16 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 2,039 GB/s | 900 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Volta |
| Compute capability | 8.0 | 7.0 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | 312 TFLOPS | 125 TFLOPS (SXM2), 112 TFLOPS (PCIe) |
| NVLink / multi-GPU interconnect | NVLink 3, 600 GB/s | NVLink, 300 GB/s (SXM2 only) |
| Max board power (TDP) | 400W (SXM) | 300W (SXM2), 250W (PCIe) |
| Form factor | SXM4 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Regions | 6 | 4 |
On-demand price
| Rate | A100 | V100 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $1.49/GPU/hr | $0.088/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: A100 or V100?
The A100 (Ampere) supports BF16 tensor cores and INT4-class quantized serving kernels; the V100 (Volta) supports neither (lib/tools/gpu-capabilities.ts), a real capability floor, not just a speed difference, since a V100 physically cannot run a BF16-native model at native precision. Pick the A100 when your model or framework expects BF16, or you need INT4-quantized serving kernels (AWQ/GPTQ/Marlin-class); pick the V100 when you're running an FP16/FP32-only legacy workload and V100 pricing or availability works for you. On price the V100 undercuts the A100 by 92% at the entry rate ($0.088 vs $1.10/GPU/hr). Worth weighing if the deciding factor above isn't a hard requirement for your job.
Decision criteria
| Compute precision | A100 supports BF16 and INT4 serving kernels; V100 supports neither (lib/tools/gpu-capabilities.ts). Volta predates the SM 7.5 INT4-kernel floor. |
| Architecture | Ampere (A100) vs Volta (V100), two generations apart. |
| VRAM | 80 GB (A100) vs 16 GB (V100), live from current listings. |
| Availability | 6 region(s) list the A100 vs 4 for the V100. |
| Entry price | $1.10/GPU/hr (A100) vs $0.088/GPU/hr (V100). |
Pick the A100 when
- Your model expects BF16 or needs INT4-quantized serving kernels
- You want the more modern, better-supported architecture
- Your framework's kernels target Ampere or newer
Pick the V100 when
- You're running a legacy FP16/FP32-only pipeline that already works on Volta
- V100 pricing is meaningfully cheaper for your job
- You have no BF16/INT4 dependency at all
Price-performance
At list rates, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $88 on the V100 against $1,102 on the A100. Neither NVIDIA nor Aquanode publishes a workload-normalized $/token or $/epoch figure for this pair, so $/GPU-hour below is the only apples-to-apples number. A faster card can still cost less per finished job even at a higher hourly rate.
A100 vs V100: common questions
Is the A100 or the V100 better for AI?
Short answer: pick the A100 when your model or framework expects BF16, or you need INT4-quantized serving kernels (AWQ/GPTQ/Marlin-class). Pick the V100 when you're running an FP16/FP32-only legacy workload and V100 pricing or availability works for you.
Is the A100 or the V100 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the A100 starts at $1.10/GPU/hr (median $1.97/GPU/hr) and the V100 starts at $0.088/GPU/hr (median $0.187/GPU/hr). The V100 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 92%.
What is the difference between the A100 and the V100?
The A100 has 80 GB of VRAM against the V100's 16 GB; the A100 is an Ampere part and the V100 is Volta (compute capability 8.0 vs 7.0); only the A100 supports BF16, INT4 compute. On price, the A100 lists from $1.10/GPU/hr and the V100 from $0.088/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the A100 and the V100?
The A100 is listed in 6 regions and the V100 in 4 regions right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the A100 vs the V100?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $1,102 on the A100 and $88 on the V100, a difference of $1,014 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the A100 have compared to the V100?
The A100 has 80 GB of VRAM; the V100 has 16 GB.
Can a V100 run BF16 models?
No. Volta (the V100's architecture) has no BF16 tensor cores at all, so a model that expects native BF16 either won't run or has to be cast to FP16/FP32 first, which changes numerics. The A100 (Ampere) supports BF16 natively, which is the real reason to pick it over a V100 for anything but a legacy FP16/FP32 pipeline.
Does the A100 or the V100 support NVLink?
Yes, both support a multi-GPU interconnect: the A100 has NVLink 3, 600 GB/s and the V100 has NVLink, 300 GB/s (SXM2 only).
How this comparison is calculated
Every price is normalized to a per-GPU hourly rate using the same pipeline as every other pricing surface on Aquanode, and only the cheapest qualifying offer per provider is shown. A dash means that provider does not currently list that GPU.
Architecture, compute capability and supported precisions come from each vendor's published datasheet for that generation, not from the marketplace feed. This page regenerates at most once per hour.
Memory bandwidth, tensor TFLOPS, NVLink/interconnect and max board power are the same verified-from-datasheet figures shown on each model's own A100 page and V100 page, which link the primary vendor source for that model. A dash here means Aquanode hasn't verified that figure from a primary source yet, never a guess.
Go further
Check what fits in each card's memory with the A100 VRAM calculator and the V100 VRAM calculator, see vendor-published throughput in the GPU benchmarks and specs table, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More A100 comparisons
More V100 comparisons
Related reading: A100 pricing and specs, A100 vs H100, A100 vs V100, and The best GPUs for AI, ranked.
