A40 vs RTX 3070: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the A40 when 48 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3070 when 8 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
The A40 has 48 GB of VRAM; the RTX 3070 has 8 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. A40 from $0.539/GPU/hr across 1 provider; RTX 3070 from $0.143/GPU/hr across 1 provider. The RTX 3070 is 73% cheaper at the entry rate.
A40
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
RTX 3070
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
Last updated: 2026-10-07 22:30:30 UTCRefreshes hourly
Specs side by side
| Spec | A40 | RTX 3070 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 48 GB | 8 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | – | 448 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| Compute capability | 8.6 | 8.6 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | – | 81.3 TFLOPS |
| Max board power (TDP) | – | 220W |
| Providers | 1 | 1 |
| Regions | 1 | 1 |
On-demand price
| Rate | A40 | RTX 3070 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.539/GPU/hr | $0.143/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: A40 or RTX 3070?
Choose the A40 when 48 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3070 when 8 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
A40 vs RTX 3070: common questions
Is the A40 or the RTX 3070 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the A40 when 48 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3070 when 8 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
Is the A40 or the RTX 3070 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the A40 starts at $0.539/GPU/hr (median $0.539/GPU/hr across 1 provider) and the RTX 3070 starts at $0.143/GPU/hr (median $0.143/GPU/hr across 1 provider). The RTX 3070 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 73%.
What is the difference between the A40 and the RTX 3070?
The A40 has 48 GB of VRAM against the RTX 3070's 8 GB; both are Ampere parts; both run BF16, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the A40 lists from $0.539/GPU/hr and the RTX 3070 from $0.143/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the A40 and the RTX 3070?
1 provider list the A40 and 1 list the RTX 3070, across 1 and 1 region respectively. 1 provider currently lists both models.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the A40 vs the RTX 3070?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $539 on the A40 and $143 on the RTX 3070, a difference of $396 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the A40 have compared to the RTX 3070?
The A40 has 48 GB of VRAM; the RTX 3070 has 8 GB.
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 A40 page and RTX 3070 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 A40 memory figure above and the RTX 3070 VRAM calculator, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More A40 comparisons
More RTX 3070 comparisons
Related reading: H100 pricing and specs, The best GPUs for AI, ranked, and Best GPU for LLM inference.
