A40 vs RTX A6000: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the RTX A6000 when 48 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the A40 when 45 GB is enough for the workload and availability points that way.
The A40 has 45 GB of VRAM; the RTX A6000 has 48 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. A40 from $0.801/GPU/hr; RTX A6000 from $0.550/GPU/hr. The RTX A6000 is 31% cheaper at the entry rate.
A40
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
RTX A6000
Good for training and inference on models that don't need FP8 kernels
Last updated: 2026-11-03 UTCRefreshes every 6 hours
Specs side by side
| Spec | A40 | RTX A6000 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 45 GB | 48 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | – | 768 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| Compute capability | 8.6 | 8.6 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 |
| NVLink / multi-GPU interconnect | – | NVLink, 2-way |
| Max board power (TDP) | – | 300W |
| Regions | 1 | 3 |
On-demand price
| Rate | A40 | RTX A6000 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.801/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) | $0.550/GPU/hr |
Which is better for AI: A40 or RTX A6000?
Choose the RTX A6000 when 48 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the A40 when 45 GB is enough for the workload and availability points that way.
A40 vs RTX A6000: common questions
Is the A40 or the RTX A6000 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the RTX A6000 when 48 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the A40 when 45 GB is enough for the workload and availability points that way.
Is the A40 or the RTX A6000 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the A40 starts at $0.801/GPU/hr (median $0.801/GPU/hr) and the RTX A6000 starts at $0.550/GPU/hr (median $0.627/GPU/hr). The RTX A6000 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 31%.
What is the difference between the A40 and the RTX A6000?
The A40 has 45 GB of VRAM against the RTX A6000's 48 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 A6000 from $0.550/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the A40 and the RTX A6000?
The A40 is listed in 1 region and the RTX A6000 in 3 regions right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the A40 vs the RTX A6000?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $801 on the A40 and $550 on the RTX A6000, a difference of $251 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the A40 have compared to the RTX A6000?
The A40 has 45 GB of VRAM; the RTX A6000 has 48 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 A6000 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 A6000 VRAM calculator, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More A40 comparisons
More RTX A6000 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.
