A100 vs RTX 3090: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the A100 when 80 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3090 when 24 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
The A100 has 80 GB of VRAM; the RTX 3090 has 24 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. A100 from $1.26/GPU/hr; RTX 3090 from $0.220/GPU/hr. The RTX 3090 is 83% cheaper at the entry rate.
A100
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
RTX 3090
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
Last updated: 2026-11-03 UTCRefreshes every 6 hours
Specs side by side
| Spec | A100 | RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 80 GB | 24 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 2,039 GB/s | 936 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| Compute capability | 8.0 | 8.6 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | 312 TFLOPS | 142 TFLOPS |
| NVLink / multi-GPU interconnect | NVLink 3, 600 GB/s | NVLink, 2-way |
| Max board power (TDP) | 400W (SXM) | 350W |
| Form factor | SXM4 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Regions | 5 | 2 |
On-demand price
| Rate | A100 | RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $1.49/GPU/hr | $0.220/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: A100 or RTX 3090?
Choose the A100 when 80 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3090 when 24 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
A100 vs RTX 3090: common questions
Is the A100 or the RTX 3090 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the A100 when 80 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3090 when 24 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
Is the A100 or the RTX 3090 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the A100 starts at $1.26/GPU/hr (median $1.52/GPU/hr) and the RTX 3090 starts at $0.220/GPU/hr (median $0.320/GPU/hr). The RTX 3090 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 83%.
What is the difference between the A100 and the RTX 3090?
The A100 has 80 GB of VRAM against the RTX 3090's 24 GB; both are Ampere parts; both run BF16, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the A100 lists from $1.26/GPU/hr and the RTX 3090 from $0.220/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the A100 and the RTX 3090?
The A100 is listed in 5 regions and the RTX 3090 in 2 regions right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the A100 vs the RTX 3090?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $1,264 on the A100 and $220 on the RTX 3090, a difference of $1,044 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the A100 have compared to the RTX 3090?
The A100 has 80 GB of VRAM; the RTX 3090 has 24 GB.
Does the A100 or the RTX 3090 support NVLink?
Yes, both support a multi-GPU interconnect: the A100 has NVLink 3, 600 GB/s and the RTX 3090 has NVLink, 2-way.
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 RTX 3090 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 RTX 3090 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 RTX 3090 comparisons
Related reading: A100 pricing and specs, A100 vs H100, A100 vs V100, and The best GPUs for AI, ranked.
