NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition vs NVIDIA A40, AI & Machine Learning Comparison
NVIDIA A40 wins 8 of 9 benchmarks, averaging 45.5% faster.
NVIDIA A40's numbers are anchored estimates calibrated against our measured cards, pending first-party measurement. Treat small gaps as ties.
What the numbers say
The gap is widest in Stable Diffusion XL, where NVIDIA A40 leads by 120% (4.18 vs 9.2 images/min); the closest fight is Llama 3.1 8B (8% apart); VRAM decides part of this one: NVIDIA A40 runs 8 of our 12 AI workloads while the other card runs 3, models that don't fit score zero.
Benchmark results head-to-head
| Benchmark | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition | NVIDIA A40 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 4B tok/s | 148.46 | 160.79 | -8% |
| Llama 3.1 8B tok/s | 98.34 | 106.18 | -7% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 14B tok/s | 0 | 57.85 | n/a |
| Qwen3 32B tok/s | 0 | 26.89 | n/a |
| Llama 3.3 70B tok/s | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Stable Diffusion XL images/min | 4.18 | 9.2 | -55% |
| Z-Image Turbo images/min | 0 | 3.225 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 dev images/min | 0 | 1.95 | n/a |
| Wan 2.2 5B (720p) frames/s | 0 | 0.31 | n/a |
Specifications compared
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition | NVIDIA A40 | |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 11GB | 48GB |
| Architecture | Turing (TU102) | Ampere |
| Memory bandwidth | 616 GB/s | 696 GB/s |
| Boost clock | 1,545 MHz | 1,740 MHz |
| TDP | 250 W | 300 W |
| Launch MSRP | $1,199 | $5,000 |
| Release | 2018-09-20 | 2020-10-05 |
FAQ
- Which is better for ai & machine learning: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition or NVIDIA A40?
- NVIDIA A40 performs better for ai & machine learning, winning 8 of 9 benchmarks in our suite with an average 45.5% advantage.
- What are the main hardware differences between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition and NVIDIA A40?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition has 11GB VRAM and a 250W TDP, while NVIDIA A40 has 48GB VRAM and a 300W TDP.
- Does VRAM matter more than speed between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition and NVIDIA A40?
- For AI, yes, NVIDIA A40 fits 9 more of our 12 workloads than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition. A model that exceeds VRAM doesn't run slower, it doesn't run at all, so the card that fits the model wins that workload outright.
- Where is the biggest performance difference between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition and NVIDIA A40?
- Stable Diffusion XL: NVIDIA A40 leads by roughly 120% (4.18 vs 9.2 images/min) in our testing.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition full review · NVIDIA A40 full review · All AI & Machine Learning rankings