H100 vs A100 vs RTX 4090 - which one should you rent? We break down specs, pricing, and real-world performance.
Quick Comparison
| Spec | H100 | A100 | RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 80GB | 80GB | 24GB |
| Architecture | Hopper | Ampere | Ada Lovelace |
| FP16 TFLOPS | 1979 | 312 | 330 |
| Price/hr | ₹583 | ₹173 | ₹73 |
| Best For | 405B models | 70B models | 13B models |
H100 - The Beast
When to Use H100
- Training 100B+ parameter models
- Need maximum speed (6x faster than A100)
- Budget isn't a constraint
- Running Llama 405B, GPT-4 scale models
Real talk: Overkill for 99% of use cases. Only rent if you actually need it.
A100 - The Workhorse
When to Use A100
- Training 30B-70B models
- Need 80GB VRAM
- Production ML workloads
- Multi-day training runs
Sweet spot: Best price/performance for serious ML work.
RTX 4090 - The Value King
When to Use RTX 4090
- Fine-tuning 7B-13B models
- Stable Diffusion, image generation
- Testing and prototyping
- Budget-conscious projects
Best value: 90% of the capability at 12% of H100 cost.
Performance Benchmarks
Llama 3.1 70B Fine-Tuning (10K examples)
- H100: 2.5 hours (₹1,458)
- A100: 6 hours (₹1,038)
- RTX 4090: Not enough VRAM
Decision Tree
Model < 13B? → Use RTX 4090 (₹73/hr)
Model 30B-70B? → Use A100 (₹173/hr)
Model 100B+? → Use H100 (₹583/hr)
Still Confused?
Start with RTX 4090. If you hit VRAM limits, upgrade to A100. Simple.
Top comments (0)