A40 vs RTX 3080: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the A40 when 45 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3080 when 12 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
The A40 has 45 GB of VRAM; the RTX 3080 has 12 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. A40 from $0.801/GPU/hr; RTX 3080 from $0.132/GPU/hr. The RTX 3080 is 84% cheaper at the entry rate.
A40
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
RTX 3080
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
Last updated: 2026-11-03 UTCRefreshes every 6 hours
Specs side by side
| Spec | A40 | RTX 3080 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 45 GB | 12 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | – | 760 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 | – | 119 TFLOPS |
| Max board power (TDP) | – | 320W |
| Form factor | – | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Regions | 1 | 2 |
On-demand price
| Rate | A40 | RTX 3080 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.801/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) | $0.132/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: A40 or RTX 3080?
Choose the A40 when 45 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3080 when 12 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
A40 vs RTX 3080: common questions
Is the A40 or the RTX 3080 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the A40 when 45 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 3080 when 12 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
Is the A40 or the RTX 3080 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the A40 starts at $0.801/GPU/hr (median $0.801/GPU/hr) and the RTX 3080 starts at $0.132/GPU/hr (median $0.307/GPU/hr). The RTX 3080 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 84%.
What is the difference between the A40 and the RTX 3080?
The A40 has 45 GB of VRAM against the RTX 3080's 12 GB; both are Ampere parts; both run BF16, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the A40 lists from $0.801/GPU/hr and the RTX 3080 from $0.132/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the A40 and the RTX 3080?
The A40 is listed in 1 region and the RTX 3080 in 2 regions right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the A40 vs the RTX 3080?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $801 on the A40 and $132 on the RTX 3080, a difference of $669 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the A40 have compared to the RTX 3080?
The A40 has 45 GB of VRAM; the RTX 3080 has 12 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 3080 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 VRAM calculator and the RTX 3080 VRAM calculator, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More A40 comparisons
More RTX 3080 comparisons
Related reading: H100 pricing and specs, H100 vs H200, A100 vs H100, H100 and H200: SXM vs NVL vs PCIe, and The best GPUs for AI, ranked.
