Compare · prices checked 2026-09-03
A100 SXM4 vs A100 PCIE: specs, price per hour, which to rent
NVIDIA A100 SXM4 (80 GB, $0.583/hr) against NVIDIA A100 PCIE (80 GB, $0.662/hr): public specs side by side, live fixed prices from our sheet, what fits in each card's VRAM, and a verdict written for real workloads — both are rentable right now.
A100 SXM4 vs A100 PCIE specifications
Public NVIDIA figures (dense, non-sparsity). The last column is A100 SXM4 relative to A100 PCIE.
| Spec | A100 SXM4 | A100 PCIE | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ampere (2020) | Ampere (2021) | — |
| VRAM | 80 GB HBM2e | 80 GB HBM2e | same |
| Memory bandwidth | 2,039 GB/s | 1,935 GB/s | +5% |
| FP16 tensor (dense) | 312 TFLOPS | 312 TFLOPS | same |
| FP32 | 19.5 TFLOPS | 19.5 TFLOPS | same |
| CUDA cores | 6,912 | 6,912 | same |
| TDP | 400 W | 300 W | +33% |
| PCIe · NVLink | Gen 4.0 · NVLink | Gen 4.0 · no NVLink | — |
| PowerScore (RTX 3090 = 100) | 220 | 220 | same |
| Max GPUs per machine | 8× | 8× | — |
A100 SXM4 vs A100 PCIE price per hour
Fixed rates from our sheet — every on-demand price is the marketplace median × 0.70, rounded down. Monthly = 730 hours.
| Rate | A100 SXM4 | A100 PCIE | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-demand, per GPU-hour | $0.583 | $0.662 | A100 SXM4 (−12%) |
| Interruptible, per GPU-hour | $0.291 | $0.331 | A100 SXM4 |
| Reserved (3 mo), per GPU-hour | $0.378 | $0.430 | A100 SXM4 |
| On-demand, per month | $426 | $483 | A100 SXM4 |
| Market median (reference) | $0.83 | $0.95 | — |
| $ per 1,000 FP16 TFLOP-hours | $1.87 | $2.12 | A100 SXM4 (better value) |
| $ per GB of VRAM per hour | $0.0073 | $0.0083 | A100 SXM4 (better value) |
Try a full month with storage and bandwidth in the GPU cost calculator.
What fits in VRAM: 80 GB vs 80 GB
| Workload | A100 SXM4 | A100 PCIE |
|---|---|---|
| Largest LLM in FP16, one card | ~32B | ~32B |
| Largest LLM at 4-bit, one card | ~123B | ~123B |
| Flux dev (FP8, ~17 GB) | fits | fits |
| Wan 2.x 14B video (offloaded) | yes | yes |
| 70B 4-bit LLM on one card | yes | yes |
Rules of thumb: ~2.4 GB per billion parameters in FP16 all-in, ~0.62 GB in 4-bit. Full tables in the VRAM guide.
Verdict: which should you rent?
Identical GPU, different package: the SXM4 part has 600 GB/s NVLink, higher sustained clocks and a 400 W envelope; the PCIe card runs at 300 W without the fabric. Rent SXM4 for multi-GPU training, PCIe for single-card jobs.
- Cheaper per hour: A100 SXM4 ($0.583 vs $0.662, −12%).
- More VRAM: A100 SXM4 (80 GB vs 80 GB).
- More FP16 throughput: A100 SXM4 (about 1.0×).
- Best value per TFLOP-hour: A100 SXM4.
- Best value per GB of VRAM: A100 SXM4.
- Multi-GPU: A100 SXM4 with NVLink · A100 PCIE over PCIe.
Related comparisons
A100 SXM4 vs A100 PCIE: FAQ
Deeper reading: H100 vs H200 vs B200, RTX 4090 vs RTX 5090, how cloud GPU pricing works.
Is the A100 SXM4 faster than the A100 PCIE?
On dense FP16 tensor throughput the A100 SXM4 leads by about 1.0× (312 vs 312 TFLOPS). Memory bandwidth matters as much for inference: A100 SXM4 2,039 GB/s vs A100 PCIE 1,935 GB/s.
Which is cheaper to rent, the A100 SXM4 or the A100 PCIE?
The A100 SXM4: $0.583/hr on-demand versus $0.662/hr — 12% less. Interruptible rates are $0.291 (A100 SXM4) and $0.331 (A100 PCIE). Per TFLOP-hour the better value is the A100 SXM4.
Which has more VRAM and what does that change?
The A100 SXM4 has 80 GB versus 80 GB. In LLM terms that is roughly a 32B FP16 model (or ~123B in 4-bit) on one card against 32B FP16 (~123B 4-bit). If the model does not fit, speed is irrelevant.
Can I rent both on PowerGPU right now?
Yes — 43 × A100 SXM4 and 55 × A100 PCIE are online as this page renders, deployable in about 30 seconds, billed per second, paid in crypto with no KYC.