NVIDIA GPU Comparison: B200 vs H200 vs H100 vs A100
⚡ Executive Summary
2026 Update: The new B200 delivers 11-15x performance over H200 at 1.5x the price. H200 offers 2x inference speed over H100. The H100 still delivers 3.0x performance at 2.2x the price of the A100. For frontier models (>100B), B200 is essential. For models under 70B, H100 or even A100 remain cost-effective.
📊 2026 GPU Specifications Comparison
| Specification | A100 80GB | H100 80GB | H200 141GB | B200 192GB | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ampere (7nm) | Hopper (4nm) | Hopper (4nm) | Blackwell (4nm) | B200 |
| Memory | 80GB HBM2e | 80GB HBM3 | 141GB HBM3e | 192GB HBM3e | B200 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 2.0 TB/s | 3.35 TB/s | 4.8 TB/s | 8.0 TB/s | B200 (4x) |
| FP8 Performance | 624 TFLOPS | 1,979 TFLOPS | 3,958 TFLOPS | 9,000 TFLOPS | B200 (14x) |
| TDP | 400W | 700W | 700W | 1000W | A100 |
| Avg Cloud $/Hour | $1.89 | $2.49 | $4.25 | $6.25 | A100 |
🚀 Real-World Performance Benchmarks
LLaMA 70B Training Time (hours)
A100:
H100:
3x faster training = 66% time reduction
💰 Total Cost of Ownership Analysis
Scenario 1: Training LLaMA-3 70B from Scratch
| 8x A100 Cluster | 168 hours × $17.68/hr | $2,970 |
| 8x H100 Cluster | 56 hours × $39.12/hr | $2,191 |
| H100 Savings | $779 (26% cheaper) | |
Scenario 2: Fine-tuning 7B Model
| 1x A100 | 12 hours × $2.21/hr | $26.52 |
| 1x H100 | 4 hours × $4.89/hr | $19.56 |
| H100 Savings | $6.96 (26% cheaper) | |
🎯 Decision Matrix: Which GPU for Your Workload?
Choose H100 If:
- Training models >30B parameters
- Time-to-market is critical
- Running continuous training pipelines
- Need FP8 precision support
- Budget >$10,000/month
Choose A100 If:
- Fine-tuning existing models
- Running inference workloads
- Training models <30B parameters
- Budget conscious (<$5,000/month)
- Need better availability
🔮 2026 Market Analysis
The B200 "Blackwell" GPUs are now available but supply-constrained with most 2025 production sold out. H100 prices have dropped ~50% since 2024, now at $2.29-4.99/hr. A100 has become the budget king at $1.65-3.67/hr. AMD's MI325X (256GB) at $2.25/hr offers the best memory-per-dollar, challenging NVIDIA's dominance.
🆕 Key 2026 Developments:
- NVIDIA B200: Production sold out through 2025, 11-15x LLM throughput vs H200
- AMD MI355X: 288GB HBM3e launching June 2026 at 30% less than B200
- Intel Gaudi 3: $1.99/hr makes it cheapest enterprise option
- AWS Trainium3: 3nm process, December 2025 launch, 4.4x performance vs Trn2
- Google TPU v7: Preview access at $8.50/hr, 100% better perf/watt than v6e
⚠️ Hidden Costs to Consider
- H100 requires 2x cooling capacity ($$$ for on-prem)
- Most frameworks not optimized for H100's FP8 yet
- A100 has 5x better spot instance availability
- H100 interconnect (NVLink 4.0) needs specific motherboards
🧮 Quick ROI Calculator
Enter your workload details to see cost comparison: