H100 SXM5 80GB vs H200 SXM 141GB for LLM inference

H100 SXM5 80GB vs H200 SXM 141GB: verdict

H100 SXM5 80GB vs H200 SXM 141GB: the short version is that H200 SXM 141GB wins on VRAM (80GB on the H100 SXM5 80GB vs 141GB on the H200 SXM 141GB), H200 SXM 141GB wins on raw memory bandwidth (3350 GB/s on the H100 SXM5 80GB vs 4800 GB/s on the H200 SXM 141GB, the number that dominates decode throughput), and H100 SXM5 80GB is the cheaper of the two to rent today. Which of those matters more depends entirely on your workload: a large model or long-context deployment cares most about the VRAM number, while a smaller model serving many short requests cares much more about bandwidth and cost per token. When VRAM is tied, bandwidth and price become the primary levers. Neither the H100 SXM5 80GB nor the H200 SXM 141GB is a universally correct answer — they're built for overlapping but distinct points on the capacity-versus-throughput curve, and the gap between them (in bandwidth and price, and potentially VRAM) is usually the whole reason to pick one over the other rather than defaulting to whichever one you already have access to. The full spec table above covers bf16/fp8 compute throughput, NVLink support, and power draw for both cards, and the models table above shows which currently-popular open-weight models actually fit on each one — the more concrete way to answer 'which GPU do I need' than specs alone.