Rent A100 PCIe 40GB
Compare live on-demand and spot rental prices across 97+ cloud providers. PCIe form factor A100 40GB. Same compute as 80GB variant but half the VRAM. Lowest cost A100 option. Suitable for models up to ~30B parameters.
Choosing the right billing model for A100 PCIe 40GB
Provision and terminate at any time. Ideal for development, short experiments, and workloads with unpredictable duration.
Instances can be reclaimed when demand spikes. Best for fault-tolerant batch jobs, training with checkpointing, and preprocessing.
Lock in a rate for 1–3 months. Right for sustained production inference or long training runs where cost predictability matters.
Best use cases
- Mid-size model inference
- Cost-efficient training
- Research workloads
A100 PCIe 40GB — Specs & Benchmarks
Performance bars, compute tiers (FP32/FP16/BF16/FP8/INT8), memory specs, LLM model size guidance, and related GPU comparisons.
A100 PCIe 40GB Rental Guide
Renting the A100 PCIe 40GB makes sense when your workload requires 40GB of HBM2e memory and 312 TFLOPS of FP16 compute. The most common use cases are Mid-size model inference, Cost-efficient training, Research workloads. Before committing to a rental, verify that your model and batch size fit within 40GB — a 70B parameter model requires approximately 140GB at FP16, which would require two A100 PCIe 40GB instances with tensor parallelism.
For fault-tolerant batch workloads — preprocessing, offline inference, or training with checkpointing — spot instances typically save 40–70% vs on-demand rates. The A100 PCIe 40GB's 40GB VRAM makes it well-suited for long-running batch jobs where interruption recovery is manageable. On-demand instances give you full control with no commitment — ideal for development, short experiments, and workloads with unpredictable duration. Most providers bill per second or per minute, so short jobs are not penalized by hourly minimums.
Reserved pricing (1–3 month commitments) makes sense if you have a predictable, sustained workload. For development, experimentation, or variable-volume inference, on-demand remains the most flexible choice. When comparing providers, look beyond the headline hourly rate: check region availability (latency matters for interactive inference), spot interruption frequency, and whether the provider offers per-second billing. Use the GPU cost calculator to model total cost across different billing models and utilization rates before choosing a provider.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to rent a A100 PCIe 40GB?
A100 PCIe 40GB on-demand rental prices vary by provider and region. On-demand rates typically range based on availability and provider margins — use the comparison table above to see current live rates across all providers. Spot instances are generally 40–70% cheaper than on-demand but can be interrupted. Monthly cost estimates (hourly rate × 730 hours) are shown in the table for sustained workloads.
Which cloud provider has the cheapest A100 PCIe 40GB?
The cheapest A100 PCIe 40GB provider changes as providers update their pricing. The comparison table above shows live rates sorted by price, so the cheapest option is always at the top. Factors beyond headline price include region (latency to your users), availability (high/medium/low), and billing granularity (per-second vs per-hour minimums).
What can I run on a A100 PCIe 40GB?
With 40GB of HBM2e, the A100 PCIe 40GB can run LLM models up to approximately 20B parameters at FP16, 40B at INT8, or 80B at INT4/GGUF quantization. Common workloads include: Mid-size model inference, Cost-efficient training, Research workloads. PCIe form factor A100 40GB. Same compute as 80GB variant but half the VRAM. Lowest cost A100 option. Suitable for models up to ~30B parameters.
Should I use on-demand or spot pricing for A100 PCIe 40GB?
Spot instances save 40–70% vs on-demand but can be interrupted when the provider needs capacity back. Use spot for: batch inference jobs, training runs with checkpointing, preprocessing pipelines, and any workload that can tolerate interruption and restart. Use on-demand for: production inference serving, interactive workloads, and jobs that cannot be interrupted. Most providers bill per second, so short on-demand jobs are not penalized by hourly minimums.
How does the A100 PCIe 40GB compare to the H100 for cloud rental?
The H100 80GB delivers 1,979 TFLOPS FP16 with 3,350 GB/s HBM3 bandwidth, compared to the A100 PCIe 40GB's 312 TFLOPS FP16 and 1555 GB/s bandwidth. The H100 is significantly more expensive — typically $2.50–$5.00/hr vs lower rates for the A100 PCIe 40GB. For workloads that fit within 40GB and don't require FP8 precision, the A100 PCIe 40GB often delivers better cost-per-token than the H100.
What is the memory bandwidth of the A100 PCIe 40GB and why does it matter?
The A100 PCIe 40GB has 1555 GB/s of memory bandwidth. For LLM inference, memory bandwidth is often more important than raw TFLOPS — each autoregressive token generation reads the full model weight matrix from VRAM, so bandwidth directly determines tokens-per-second throughput. Higher bandwidth means faster inference for the same model at the same batch size. For batch inference (processing many requests simultaneously), compute throughput becomes more important.
Can I use the A100 PCIe 40GB for Stable Diffusion or image generation?
Yes — the A100 PCIe 40GB is capable for Stable Diffusion and image generation workloads. Image generation is primarily FP32 and FP16 compute-bound, and the A100 PCIe 40GB's 19.5 TFLOPS FP32 throughput determines images-per-second. The 40GB VRAM fits SDXL (requires ~6GB) and most ControlNet pipelines. For high-throughput image generation at scale, compare cost-per-image across providers using the GPU cost calculator.