GPU × use-case guide · Long context

Is the A100 80GB PCIe a good GPU for long context?

The A100 80GB PCIe is a ampere NVIDIA GPU with 80 GB HBM2e (2039 GB/s), 312 TFLOPS BF16 / 312 TFLOPS FP8, and a 300 W TDP. Long context workloads care most about raw VRAM for the KV cache — context length, not weights, is what fills the card. Here's how the A100 80GB PCIe measures up.

What models fit on a single A100 80GB PCIe?

Weights only, reserving ~25% of the 80 GB for KV cache, activations and fragmentation. ✓ = fits on one card.

Largest single-card fit: Gemma 2 27B at BF16, Mixtral 8x7B (MoE) at FP8, Qwen 2.5 72B at INT4. Bigger models need tensor-parallel across 8 cards.

A100 80GB PCIe for long context, specifically

Long context is context-heavy, so the KV cache — not the weights — is what fills the 80 GB. On the A100 80GB PCIe you'll trade context length against batch size: long prompts mean fewer concurrent requests. Because it runs offline, batch aggressively to push tokens-per-dollar down. Size it precisely on the calculator.

A100 80GB PCIe pricing across providers

Verdict

With 80 GB, the A100 80GB PCIe is a data-center-class card that comfortably handles long context for models up to Gemma 2 27B at full precision on a single card — a strong pick if your budget supports ~$1.49/hr.