A40 vs RTX 3060: cloud rental cost compared

You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. A40 from $0.075/GPU/hr across 2 providers; RTX 3060 from $0.080/GPU/hr across 1 provider. The A40 is 6% cheaper at the entry rate.

A40
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
$0.075/hr
Lowest / GPU
$0.440/hr
Median / GPU
48 GB
VRAM
Ampere
Architecture
RTX 3060
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
$0.080/hr
Lowest / GPU
$0.116/hr
Median / GPU
12 GB
VRAM
Ampere
Architecture

Specs side by side

Spec
A40
RTX 3060
VRAM
48 GB
12 GB
Architecture
Ampere
Ampere
Compute capability
8.6
8.6
Precisions in hardware
FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4
FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4
Interconnect
PCIe
PCIe 4.0 x16
Lowest $/GPU/hr
$0.075
$0.080
Median $/GPU/hr
$0.440
$0.116
Providers
2
1
Regions
2
1

Price by provider

Provider
A40 $/GPU/hr
RTX 3060 $/GPU/hr
Vultr
$0.075
SimplePod
$0.080
RunPod
$0.440

A40 vs RTX 3060: common questions

Is the A40 or the RTX 3060 cheaper to rent?

On Aquanode's live marketplace the A40 starts at $0.075/GPU/hr (median $0.440/GPU/hr across 2 providers) and the RTX 3060 starts at $0.080/GPU/hr (median $0.116/GPU/hr across 1 provider). The A40 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 6%.

What is the difference between the A40 and the RTX 3060?

The A40 has 48 GB of VRAM against the RTX 3060's 12 GB; both are Ampere parts; both run BF16, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the A40 lists from $0.075/GPU/hr and the RTX 3060 from $0.080/GPU/hr.

Which cloud providers offer the A40 and the RTX 3060?

2 providers list the A40 (Vultr and RunPod) and 1 list the RTX 3060 (SimplePod), across 2 and 1 region respectively. No single provider currently lists both models.

How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the A40 vs the RTX 3060?

At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $75 on the A40 and $80 on the RTX 3060, a difference of $5 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.

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.

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