Ampere
NVIDIA A10
wins
2
The NVIDIA A10 is a versatile Ampere GPU with 24GB GDDR6 and 150W TDP.
Ampere
NVIDIA A100 80GB
wins
3
The A100 remains one of the most widely available data center GPUs. Its broad provider support and mature software ecosystem make it a reliable choice for ML training and inference.
Performance comparison
Visual bars — winner highlighted
NVIDIA A10
Metric
NVIDIA A100 80GB
FP16 TFLOPS
Bandwidth
VRAM
TDP (lower=better)
TFLOPS/watt
GB/s per watt
Full specification table
| Spec | NVIDIA A10 | NVIDIA A100 80GB |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| VRAM | 24 GB GDDR6 | 80 GB HBM2e |
| VRAM type | GDDR6 | HBM2e |
| Memory bandwidth | 600 GB/s | 2,039 GB/s |
| FP16 TFLOPS | 125 TFLOPS | 312 TFLOPS |
| TDP | 150 W | 400 W |
| TFLOPS/watt | 0.83 T/W | 0.78 T/W |
| GB/s per watt | 4.00 GB/s/W | 5.10 GB/s/W |
| NVLink | No | Yes |
| Release year | 2021 | 2020 |
Live cloud pricing
On-demand pricing across providers — updated in real time
NVIDIA A10
No live pricing data available.
NVIDIA A100 80GB
Salad: Lowest priority tier — preemptible
Power efficiency analysis
TFLOPS/watt and GB/s/watt — critical for data center TCO
NVIDIA A10
NVIDIA A100 80GB
TFLOPS/watt measures compute efficiency — how much AI throughput you get per watt of power consumed. For data centers with PUE of 1.2–1.5, a 10% improvement in TFLOPS/watt translates directly to lower electricity costs and cooling requirements. GB/s/watt measures memory bandwidth efficiency, which is the binding constraint for memory-bound LLM inference workloads.
Performance-per-dollar
TFLOPS/$ and GB/s/$ at current best cloud prices
NVIDIA A10
NVIDIA A100 80GB
TFLOPS/$ = FP16 TFLOPS ÷ best on-demand $/hr. Higher is better — more compute per dollar. GB/s/$ = memory bandwidth ÷ best on-demand $/hr. For memory-bound inference workloads (most LLM serving), GB/s/$ is often a better predictor of cost-efficiency than TFLOPS/$. Prices are live from the Compute Comparison API and update in real time.
Workload Cost Comparison
Total job cost = best on-demand $/hr × GPU count × hours
| Workload | Scale | NVIDIA A10 | NVIDIA A100 80GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7B LLM fine-tune | 8× GPU, 24 h | — | $92 |
| 70B LLM fine-tune | 64× GPU, 72 h | — | $2.2k |
| Inference server | 1× GPU, 730 h | — | $350 |
| Image gen batch | 4× GPU, 8 h | — | $15 |
Based on current best on-demand prices. Spot pricing typically 40–70% lower. Actual cost depends on provider, region, and availability.
When to choose each GPU
Choose NVIDIA A10 for:
- Inference
- Graphics rendering
- Virtual workstations
Weaknesses / Limitations
- Older Ampere architecture — lower TFLOPS than Ada equivalents
- 24 GB VRAM ceiling limits model size
- Being superseded by L40S and A10G on most platforms
Choose NVIDIA A100 80GB for:
- ML training
- Inference at scale
- HPC
Weaknesses / Limitations
- Older Ampere architecture — lower FP16 TFLOPS than H100 at similar price
- No Ada Lovelace efficiency improvements
- Being phased out by H100 on many platforms
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