The A100 has 10x the memory and 8.6x the bandwidth. The RTX 3050 is newer and cheaper right now.
At a glance
Memory
10x more on A100
- A100
- 80 GB
- RTX 3050
- 8 GB
Memory bandwidth
8.6x higher on A100
- A100
- 1,935 GB/s
- RTX 3050
- 224 GB/s
Cheapest on-demand
79% cheaper on RTX 3050
- A100
- $0.34 /GPU/hr
- RTX 3050
- $0.07 /GPU/hr
Price comparison
Median price per GPU per hour by billing type, with the cheapest listing under it.
| Billing | A100 | RTX 3050 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-demand | $1.81 /GPU/hr from $0.34 | -- /GPU/hr from $0.07 | |
| Reserved | $1.49 /GPU/hr from $0.40 (6 mo) | No reserved listings | |
| Spot | $1.08 /GPU/hr from $0.20 | -- /GPU/hr from $0.03 |
Heads up: A provider's own page may quote a different figure, for example on tax, region or a promotion. A monthly-only plan shows a derived hourly rate. Medians are across providers, one vote each, so a large catalog does not outweigh a small one. No median for on-demand and spot on the RTX 3050: we only show one when at least 3 providers list the GPU on that billing type. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
Price history
A100 vs RTX 3050 price history
Weekly median on-demand price per GPU per hour
Specs comparison
| Spec | A100 | RTX 3050 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memory | |||
| Capacity | 80 GB HBM2e 40 GB on SXM, PCIe | 8 GB GDDR6 | 10x more on A100 |
| Bandwidth | 1,935 GB/s 2,039 GB/s on SXM 1,555 GB/s on SXM, PCIe | 224 GB/s | 8.6x higher on A100 |
| Bus width | 5,120-bit | 128-bit | 40x wider on A100 |
| Compute · dense | |||
| FP16 / BF16 | 312 TFLOPS | 18.2 TFLOPS | 17x higher on A100 |
| INT8 | 624 TOPS | 72.8 TOPS | 8.6x higher on A100 |
| FP32 | 19.5 TFLOPS | 9.1 TFLOPS | 2.1x higher on A100 |
| FP64 | 9.7 TFLOPS | Not supported | A100 only |
| Platform | |||
| Interconnect | NVLink 600 GB/s | PCIe only | NVLink on A100 only |
| Board power | 300 W | 130 W | 2.3x higher on A100 |
| Released | Q2 2020 | Q1 2022 | 2 years newer on RTX 3050 |
| Precision | |||
| Supported formats | FP16BF16TF32FP32FP64INT4INT8 | FP16BF16TF32FP32INT4INT8 | |
Figures are for each model's headline configuration. Where a form factor carries a different number, it is named under the figure.
Compute: Vendor peak figures, dense and per GPU. Not measured throughput.
Source: A100 datasheet and RTX 3050 datasheet.
Where to rent them
Providers that rent these GPUs, with each one's cheapest rate. No provider we track offers both right now.
| Provider | A100 | RTX 3050 |
|---|---|---|
Vast.ai
USA
|
$0.34 /GPU/hr On-demand PCIe | -- |
GPU.ai
UAE
|
$0.41 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- |
Jarvislabs
India
|
$0.89 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- |
Runpod
USA
|
$1.00 /GPU/hr On-demand SXM | -- |
Thunder Compute
USA
|
$1.09 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- |
Lium
Distributed
|
$1.19 /GPU/hr On-demand SXM | -- |
Massed Compute
USA
|
$1.38 /GPU/hr On-demand SXM | -- |
Packet·ai
USA
|
$1.43 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- |
Salad
Distributed
|
-- | $0.07 /GPU/hr On-demand |
48 providers list the A100 and 1 the RTX 3050. Every listing is on the A100 page and the RTX 3050 page.
Similar GPUs
Other comparisons in the same class.
-
Nvidia H100
80 GB HBM3 · 73% more bandwidth than the A100
From $1.30 /GPU/hr Compare -
Nvidia RTX 5090
32 GB GDDR7 · PCIe only
From $0.35 /GPU/hr Compare
-
Nvidia RTX 4090
24 GB GDDR6X · 48% less bandwidth than the A100
From $0.29 /GPU/hr Compare
-
Nvidia RTX 3060
12 GB GDDR6 · 61% more bandwidth than the RTX 3050
From $0.05 /GPU/hr Compare
-
Nvidia RTX 4060
8 GB GDDR6 · 21% more bandwidth than the RTX 3050
From $0.08 /GPU/hr Compare
Our data for Nvidia A100 was last updated on Sept. 14, 2026, and for Nvidia RTX 3050 on Sept. 14, 2026.