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L40S vs A100Specs, memory and LLM performance
The L40S is a newer Ada Lovelace PCIe card with 48 GB of GDDR6 and FP8 support. The A100 has 80 GB of HBM2e with 2.4× the bandwidth and NVLink.
Memory
48 GB vs 80 GB
Bandwidth
864 GB/s vs 2.04 TB/s
Power
350 W vs 400 W
Type
Data center PCIe GPU vs Data center GPU
Which should you choose?
CHOOSE L40S IF
You want an air-cooled PCIe card for inference of small and mid-size models, plus graphics and video work.
CHOOSE A100 IF
You need more memory and bandwidth per GPU, or multi-GPU training with NVLink.
Still deciding between L40S and A100?
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L40S vs A100 specs
Manufacturer specifications. Green marks the stronger figure where a higher number is better. Dense compute is shown without sparsity.
| Specification | NVIDIA L40S | NVIDIA A100 80GB |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Data center PCIe GPU | Data center GPU |
| Memory | 48 GB | 80 GB |
| Memory type | GDDR6 with ECC | HBM2e |
| Memory bandwidth | 864 GB/s | 2.04 TB/s |
| FP16 / BF16 (dense) | 362 TFLOPS | 312 TFLOPS |
| FP8 (dense) | 733 TFLOPS | Not supported |
| FP4 (dense) | Not published | Not supported |
| Power | 350 W | 400 W |
| Multi-GPU link | PCIe Gen4 x16 (no NVLink) | NVLink 3: 600 GB/s |
| Form factor | Dual-slot, passively cooled PCIe card for standard servers | SXM4 module in 4- or 8-GPU servers (PCIe version: 300 W) |
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace, 2023 | Ampere, 2020 |
| Software | CUDA, TensorRT-LLM, vLLM, SGLang | CUDA, TensorRT-LLM, vLLM, SGLang |
| Price | No list price: sold in servers through OEMs and cloud providers | No list price: sold in servers through OEMs and cloud providers |
What they mean for running LLMs
For large language models, memory decides which models fit and how many users you can serve, and memory bandwidth decides how fast each user gets tokens. These are planning figures for one GPU or system using a 4-bit model.
| For LLMs | L40S | A100 |
|---|---|---|
| Usable for models | About 43 GB | About 72 GB |
| Largest dense model at 4-bit (1 user, short context) | About 65B parameters | About 110B parameters |
| Llama 3.3 70B at 4-bit, single-user speed ceiling | Does not fit on one GPU | About 53 tokens/s |
Which open-weight models fit
Memory needed for one user with 8K context at the lowest precision available for each model. Open a model for team-size and fine-tuning figures.
| Model (1 user, 8K context, lowest available precision) | L40S | A100 |
|---|---|---|
| gpt-oss-20b 21B · about 15 GB at MXFP4 | Yes | Yes |
| Gemma 4 26B A4B 25.2B · about 16 GB at 4-bit | Yes | Yes |
| Qwen3.6-27B 27.78B · about 20 GB at 4-bit | Yes | Yes |
| Qwen3.8-27B 27.8B · about 24 GB at NVFP4 | Yes | Yes |
| Gemma 4 31B 30.7B · about 20 GB at 4-bit | Yes | Yes |
| Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 35B · about 24 GB at NVFP4 | Yes | Yes |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct 70.6B · about 46 GB at INT4 | 2 GPUs | Yes |
| gpt-oss-120b 117B · about 70 GB at MXFP4 | 2 GPUs | Yes |
| MiniMax-M2.5 229B · about 135 GB at 4-bit | 4 GPUs | 2 GPUs |
| GLM-5.3-Flash 320B · about 192 GB at NVFP4 | 8 GPUs | 4 GPUs |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash 552B · about 320 GB at 4-bit | 8 GPUs | 8 GPUs |
| DeepSeek-R1 671B · about 410 GB at 4-bit | No: more than 8 GPUs | 8 GPUs |
| DeepSeek-V3.2 685B · about 419 GB at NVFP4 | No: more than 8 GPUs | 8 GPUs |
| GLM-5.2 744B · about 455 GB at NVFP4 | No: more than 8 GPUs | 8 GPUs |
| GLM-5.3 753B · about 460 GB at NVFP4 | No: more than 8 GPUs | 8 GPUs |
| GLM-5.1 754B · about 461 GB at NVFP4 | No: more than 8 GPUs | 8 GPUs |
| Kimi K2 1T · about 579 GB at 4-bit | No: more than 8 GPUs | No: more than 8 GPUs |
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro 1.6T · about 976 GB at FP4 + FP8 | No: more than 8 GPUs | No: more than 8 GPUs |
| Kimi K3 2.8T · about 1.62 TB at MXFP4 | No: more than 8 GPUs | No: more than 8 GPUs |
Models in amber need several of these GPUs working as one. Buying the GPUs is the easy part. Vanik Edge OS splits the model across them, keeps it running if a server fails and manages it all from one console. See how Edge OS clusters GPU servers
FROM SIZING TO RUNNING
Sizing the hardware is the easy part.
Getting several GPUs to work as one system for a whole company is where most projects slow down. That is the part Vanik Edge OS does for you.
STEP 01 · THIS TOOL
Size it
Work out the GPU memory your models need and which GPUs or servers can hold them.
STEP 02 · VANIK EDGE OS
Cluster it
Edge OS joins your GPU servers into one cluster, splits a large model across them and keeps it running if a server fails. NVIDIA and AMD servers work side by side.
STEP 03 · VANIK EDGE OS
Run it
Your team gets AI apps with single sign-on and an audit trail, managed from one console, with your data staying inside your building.
L40S vs A100 questions
What is the difference between the L40S and the A100?
The L40S is a newer Ada Lovelace PCIe card with 48 GB of GDDR6 and FP8 support. The A100 has 80 GB of HBM2e with 2.4× the bandwidth and NVLink.
L40S vs A100: which is better for LLM inference?
For generating tokens, the A100 is faster: it has 2.04 TB/s of memory bandwidth versus 864 GB/s, and LLM token generation is mostly limited by bandwidth. The A100 holds larger models and more users’ context with 80 GB of memory versus 48 GB. Choose the L40S if you want an air-cooled PCIe card for inference of small and mid-size models, plus graphics and video work. Choose the A100 if you need more memory and bandwidth per GPU, or multi-GPU training with NVLink.
Can the L40S and A100 run Llama 3.3 70B?
Llama 3.3 70B needs about 46 GB of memory at 4-bit for one user with 8K context. The L40S needs 2 GPUs, and the A100 runs it on one GPU at about 53 tokens/s at most for one user. Speeds are theoretical ceilings from memory bandwidth; real speeds are usually 50 to 80% of that.
How much does the L40S cost compared with the A100?
L40S: No list price: sold in servers through OEMs and cloud providers. A100: No list price: sold in servers through OEMs and cloud providers. Data center GPUs are usually bought as part of 4- or 8-GPU servers, so compare full-system quotes.
How are these numbers calculated?
Memory, bandwidth, compute and power are manufacturer specifications. Model memory needs come from our VRAM calculator: weights plus KV cache plus about 5 to 10% runtime overhead, keeping 10% of each GPU free (15% on GB10 systems, 25% on Mac). The speed ceiling is memory bandwidth divided by the model’s weight size. All figures are planning estimates.
Related comparisons
Specifications from the manufacturer pages for the NVIDIA L40S and NVIDIA A100. Speed ceilings are bandwidth divided by model size, before batching; real throughput depends on the inference engine and settings. Last checked November 10, 2026.
Not sure which hardware fits your team?
Vanik Edge OS runs open-weight models on NVIDIA DGX, AMD Instinct and other GPU servers on your premises, and helps you size the hardware first.