Head to head

A100 SXM vs RTX 4090

A100 SXM and RTX 4090 side by side: published specs, and what each one actually rents for per GPU-hour on the clouds this index tracks.

Prices last collected 2026-10-26 04:30 UTC.

Quick verdict

RTX 4090 is currently about $0.9341 per GPU-hour cheaper than A100 SXM — roughly 90% less.

Specifications side by side

Published specifications for A100 SXM and RTX 4090 (vendor data)
Attribute A100 SXM RTX 4090
Memory 80 GB 24 GB
Architecture Ampere Ada Lovelace
Memory bandwidth 2.0 TB/s 1.01 TB/s
Dense FP16 throughput 312 TFLOPS* 165 TFLOPS*

Vendor-published figures, with sparsity where the vendor states it. Always confirm on the official datasheet before sizing a cluster.

What actually differs

  • More memory per card: A100 SXM at 80 GB against 24 GB.
  • Higher memory bandwidth: A100 SXM at 2.0 TB/s.
  • A100 SXM is Ampere-generation silicon, RTX 4090 is Ada Lovelace.
  • Cheaper on the price table today: RTX 4090 from $0.1081 per GPU-hour.

More head-to-head comparisons

H100 SXM vs A100 SXM A100 SXM vs A100 PCIe L40S vs A100 SXM RTX 4090 vs RTX 5090 RTX 3090 vs RTX 4090

Frequently asked questions

Everything about renting cloud GPUs, affiliate tracking and how we collect pricing data.

How is the cheaper provider decided?

For every GPU model both providers list, we compare the normalised single-GPU hourly price. The average of those unit prices is shown for each side, and the lower one is labelled cheaper. We deliberately exclude models only one of the two offers, because that is not a like-for-like comparison.

Does the cheaper option always make sense?

Not always. Marketplace capacity can be reclaimed at short notice and its hosts vary in network and disk performance, while a dedicated cloud gives more predictable throughput. For multi-node training, interconnect and NVLink support usually matter more than a few cents per hour.

Are spot prices directly comparable between providers?

Only roughly. Each platform defines interruption rules, notice periods and reclaim behaviour differently. Treat spot prices as an indication of the cheapest achievable rate, not as a guaranteed price.

Why do you show per-hour rather than per-month prices?

Most providers bill by the second or the hour, and per-hour figures are the only ones that can be compared without guessing how many hours you will actually run. Use the GPU cost estimator to convert an hourly rate into a monthly budget.

Volume buyers

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