The NVIDIA A800 is the China-export-compliant version of the A100 SXM, with NVLink interconnect bandwidth reduced from 600 GB/s to 400 GB/s to comply with U.S. export regulations that were in effect at launch. Core compute performance — 312 TFLOPS FP16 and 80 GB HBM2e at 1,935 GB/s — is essentially identical to the A100 80GB, making it fully capable for LLM training and inference. It was widely deployed in Chinese AI clusters, powering training runs for several frontier Chinese LLMs, before being subsequently banned under tightened October 2023 export controls.
Beyond LLMs
AI Capability Matrix
What AI tasks this GPU can handle — from text generation to image and video creation.
80 GB HBM2e — 1,935 GB/s bandwidth (near-identical to A100)312 TFLOPS FP16 with sparsity / 624 INT8 TOPSSXM form factor with reduced NVLink (400 GB/s vs. A100's 600 GB/s)MIG support: up to 7 isolated instances400W TDPExport-regulated: now banned for new export to China under October 2023 BIS rules
Für KI-Workloads
Stärken
80 GB HBM2e enables 70B models at FP16 without quantization — same as A100
Core compute performance matches A100 80GB for training and inference workloads
Widely deployed in existing Chinese AI infrastructure — strong in-region availability
Hinweise
NVLink bandwidth reduced to 400 GB/s — multi-GPU scaling efficiency lower than A100 at large model sizes
No FP8 support — trails Ada and Hopper architectures for modern quantized inference
Subject to complex export licensing; no longer legally exportable to China
Being displaced by H800 and H20 in Chinese data centers; limited expansion of installed base
Architecture
Ampere
Ampere is NVIDIA's second-generation RTX architecture, built on Samsung's 8nm process. It introduced 3rd-generation Tensor Cores with support for sparsity-accelerated INT8 operations and improved FP16 throughput over Turing.
AI Relevance
Sparsity-aware Tensor Cores can effectively double throughput for structured sparse workloads. However, the lack of FP8 support means quantized inference is less efficient than Ada Lovelace or Blackwell.
Qwen 3 32B matches Chat and keeps a practical fit profile. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.
Qwen3-Coder-Next is a specialized fit for Coding. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.
Qwen3-Coder-Next is a specialized fit for Agentic Coding. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.
Qwen3-Coder-Next matches Reasoning and keeps a practical fit profile. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.
Qwen 3.5 27B matches RAG and keeps a practical fit profile. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.
Image models estimated at 1024×1024 (28 steps, FP16). Video models estimated at 768×512 (25 frames, 30 steps, FP16). Actual performance varies with runtime and system load.
Multi-GPU scaling
NVIDIA A800 80GB — Up to 8× via NVLink
Scale out with multiple GPUs for larger models. NVLink provides 400 GB/s inter-GPU bandwidth with 12% overhead.
Config
Effective memory
Models that fit
Est. bandwidth
1× NVIDIA
80 GB
350/374
1,935 GB/s
2× NVIDIA
160 GB
359/374
3,406 GB/s
4× NVIDIA
320 GB
364/374
6,811 GB/s
8× NVIDIA
640 GB
373/374
13,622 GB/s
Model counts use default quantization at coding workload settings. Multi-GPU scaling factor: 0.88× per additional GPU.
NVIDIA A800 80GB (80 GB VRAM) can run these top models: Qwen3-Coder-Next (score: 97/100), Qwen 2.5 VL 72B (score: 94/100), Qwen 3.6 35B A3B (score: 93/100). See the full compatibility list above.
How much VRAM does NVIDIA A800 80GB have for AI?
NVIDIA A800 80GB has 80 GB of VRAM available for AI model inference. This determines which models and quantization levels you can run locally.
Is NVIDIA A800 80GB good for running LLMs locally?
Yes, NVIDIA A800 80GB is excellent for running LLMs locally with top compatibility scores above 80/100.
What is the best model for NVIDIA A800 80GB for coding?
For coding on NVIDIA A800 80GB, we recommend Qwen3-Coder-Next. It achieves 101.9 tokens per second with 244K context window. Qwen3-Coder-Next is a specialized fit for Coding. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.
Should I upgrade from NVIDIA A800 80GB?
There are 5 upgrade path(s) from NVIDIA A800 80GB: NVIDIA A800 80GB, Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB. Upgrading would unlock larger models and faster inference speeds.
Can NVIDIA A800 80GB run Flux for image generation?
Yes, NVIDIA A800 80GB with 80 GB of usable memory can run Flux.1 Dev at FP16 natively. Flux is a 12B parameter diffusion transformer that produces high-quality images. You can also run the Schnell variant for faster generation.
What image and video AI models can I run on NVIDIA A800 80GB?
NVIDIA A800 80GB (80 GB VRAM) can handle various AI generation tasks beyond LLMs. For image generation, SDXL and Stable Diffusion 3.5 run well. Flux.1 Dev also runs natively for state-of-the-art image quality. For video, LTX Video 2.3 can generate short clips. Check the AI Capability Matrix above for detailed compatibility.
Is NVIDIA A800 80GB good for AI image generation?
NVIDIA A800 80GB is excellent for AI image generation. With 80 GB of usable memory, it runs all major diffusion models including Flux.1, SDXL, and Stable Diffusion 3.5 at full precision. You can generate high-resolution images quickly and even handle video generation models.
Can NVIDIA A800 80GB run Qwen 3.5 27B?
Yes, NVIDIA A800 80GB with 80 GB of usable memory can run Qwen 3.5 27B at Q8 (near-lossless, ~28.9 GB) or even FP16 (~55.4 GB) depending on your context needs. This setup provides an excellent experience with this model. Use Ollama or vLLM for best results.
What is the best quantization for AI models on NVIDIA A800 80GB?
With 80 GB VRAM on NVIDIA A800 80GB, use Q8_0 for most models — it is near-lossless and you have the memory for it. For 70B+ models, Q6_K offers excellent quality. Reserve Q4_K_M for 100B+ models or when you need maximum context length.
For local LLMs on NVIDIA A800 80GB, does VRAM matter more than bandwidth?
NVIDIA A800 80GB already has strong memory bandwidth, so the next limit is often memory capacity and context headroom rather than raw decode speed. For local LLMs, fit first and bandwidth second is the right mental model.
How does multi-GPU scale for AI inference on NVIDIA A800 80GB?
NVIDIA A800 80GB supports up to 8× GPU scaling via NVLink at 400 GB/s. With 8× GPUs, you get 640 GB effective memory with a 0.88× scaling factor per GPU. This enables running models like Qwen 3.5 397B A17B and Kimi K2.5 that don't fit on a single card.
Is NVLink required for multi-GPU NVIDIA A800 80GB inference?
NVLink is recommended for NVIDIA A800 80GB multi-GPU inference, providing 400 GB/s interconnect bandwidth with only 12% scaling overhead. PCIe-only setups work but have higher overhead (~25%) due to limited inter-GPU bandwidth.