Hopper DatacenterDatacenterHopperSXMCUDA
Operating mode
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Use this to bias workload recommendations toward responsiveness, background autonomy, lighter serving, or multi-GPU scale-out.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
About this GPU for AI
The NVIDIA H800 is a China-export-compliant variant of the H100, retaining the full Hopper compute capability โ 80 GB HBM3 and Transformer Engine with FP8 โ but with NVLink bandwidth cut to approximately 400 GB/s (down from H100's 900 GB/s) and FP64 performance capped at 1 TFLOPS. For single-GPU LLM inference, H800 performance is essentially identical to H100 SXM, making it highly effective for serving 70B models at FP16. The reduced NVLink bandwidth imposes a penalty for multi-GPU tensor parallelism in large training runs, which is why it was designed to be compliant. Like the A800, it was later banned under October 2023 export controls.
Beyond LLMs
AI Capability Matrix
What AI tasks this GPU can handle โ from text generation to image and video creation.
| Capability | Status | Representative Model | Detail |
|---|
| LLM Chat (7B) | Runs natively | Llama 3.1 8B Q4 | โ |
| LLM Coding (30B) | Runs natively | Qwen 3 30B Q4 | โ |
| LLM Large (70B) |
hbm-memorymassive-vramexport-regulatedhigh-bandwidth
Specifications
Compute
FP16900 TFLOPS
INT81800 TOPS
ArchitectureHopper
Memory
VRAM80 GB
Bandwidth3000 GB/s
General
FamilyHopper Datacenter
SegmentDatacenter
InterconnectSXM
Compute PlatformCUDA
MSRP$30,000
Key Features
80 GB HBM3 โ 3,000 GB/s bandwidth (near H100 levels)900 TFLOPS FP16 with sparsity / 1,800 INT8 TOPSFP8 Transformer Engine โ comparable single-GPU inference to H100Reduced NVLink: ~400 GB/s (vs. H100's 900 GB/s) to meet export thresholdsFP64 capped at 1 TFLOPS (from 60 TFLOPS on H100)SXM form factor, 700W TDP
For AI Workloads
Strengths
- Single-GPU inference performance matches H100 SXM โ FP8 Transformer Engine fully enabled
- 3 TB/s HBM3 bandwidth delivers fast token generation for large models
- 80 GB allows 70B models at FP16 on a single card
- Widely used in deployed Chinese AI inference infrastructure
Considerations
- Reduced NVLink (~400 GB/s) degrades multi-GPU scaling efficiency for large training runs
- Subject to export controls โ no longer legally exportable under Oct 2023 BIS rules
- High cost and niche availability outside China-focused supply chains
- Now effectively superseded in Chinese AI infrastructure by H20 (higher VRAM) and domestic alternatives
Hopper is NVIDIA's datacenter-focused architecture succeeding Ampere. Built on TSMC 4N, it introduces the Transformer Engine with automatic FP8/FP16 mixed-precision training, HBM3/HBM3e memory, and NVLink 4.0 for multi-GPU scaling. The H100 flagship delivers up to 3x the AI training performance of A100.
AI Relevance
The Transformer Engine automatically manages FP8 precision for optimal training speed without accuracy loss. With up to 141 GB HBM3e (H200), Hopper GPUs can hold the largest open-weight models entirely in GPU memory, making them the workhorse of AI datacenters.
Process: TSMC 4NPlatform: CUDATensor Cores: Gen 4Precisions: FP64, FP32, TF32, FP16, BF16, FP8, INT8
Recommendations by Workload
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.
Decode 84.9 tok/s ยท 131K ctx ยท llama.cppEST.
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.
Decode 164.1 tok/s ยท 244K ctx ยท llama.cppEST.
Just out of reach
Models you could run with an upgrade
High-quality models that need a bit more memory
397BTier 100Needs ~252.5 GB
Also runs on 4ร your GPU via NVLink โ 116 tok/s
1000BTier 100Needs ~622.6 GB
Also runs on 8ร your GPU via NVLink โ 72 tok/s
1000BTier 100Needs ~622.6 GB
Also runs on 8ร your GPU via NVLink โ 72 tok/s
1600BTier 100Needs ~871.8 GB
284BTier 98Needs ~167.6 GB
Also runs on 4ร your GPU via NVLink โ 184 tok/s
Image & Video Generation
Diffusion Model Compatibility
51 of 52 models can generate images or video on your NVIDIA H800 80GB
Multi-GPU scaling
NVIDIA H800 80GB โ Up to 8ร 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 |
|---|
| 1ร NVIDIA | 80 GB | 350/374 | 3,000 GB/s |
| 2ร NVIDIA | 160 GB | 359/374 | 5,280 GB/s |
| 4ร NVIDIA | 320 GB | 364/374 | 10,560 GB/s |
| 8ร NVIDIA | 640 GB | 373/374 | 21,120 GB/s |
Model counts use default quantization at coding workload settings. Multi-GPU scaling factor: 0.88ร per additional GPU.
Upgrade paths
Upgrade from NVIDIA H800 80GB
See what you unlock with more powerful hardware
Upgrade options
Upgrade options
8 ร 80 GB = 640 GB effectivevia NVLink (400 GB/s)
AUnlocks 23 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Qwen 3.5 397B A17B, Kimi K2.5, Kimi K2.6+20 more ยท +119% faster avg
Unlocks 23 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.
Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 119%.
NVLink gives this scale-out path a cleaner inter-GPU story than PCIe-only builds.
~$30,000 MSRP
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GBNext step up
128 GB Unified (+48)
BUnlocks 1 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Mixtral 8x22B
Unlocks 1 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.
~$3,999 MSRP
๐ NVIDIARTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition 96GBNVIDIA upgrade 96 GB VRAM (+16)
BUnlocks 1 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Mixtral 8x22B
Unlocks 1 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.
~$9,999 MSRP
AMD Instinct MI325X 256GBBiggest leap
256 GB VRAM (+176)6000 GB/s (+3000)
BUnlocks 13 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Qwen 3.5 397B A17B, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3 235B A22B+10 more ยท +26% faster avg
Unlocks 13 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.
Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 26%.
~$20,000 MSRP
AMD Instinct MI350X 288GBBest value
288 GB VRAM (+208)8000 GB/s (+5000)
BUnlocks 14 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Qwen 3.5 397B A17B, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3 235B A22B+11 more ยท +41% faster avg
Unlocks 14 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.
Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 41%.
~$8,000 MSRP
Frequently Asked Questions
80
GB
NVIDIA H800 80GBCategory AvgMac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB
| Image Gen (SDXL) | Runs natively | SDXL 1.0 FP16 | ~300ms per image |
| Image Gen (Flux) | Runs natively | Flux.1 Dev FP16 | ~~1.5s per image |
| Image Gen (SD 3.5) | Runs natively | SD 3.5 Large FP16 | ~~1.9s per image |
| Video Short (25f) | Runs natively | LTX Video 2B | ~300ms/frame |
| Video Long (100f) | Runs with offload | Wan Video 14B | ~900ms/frame |
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.
Decode 164.1 tok/s ยท 244K ctx ยท llama.cppEST.
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.
Decode 164.1 tok/s ยท 244K ctx ยท llama.cppEST.
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.
Decode 99.9 tok/s ยท 131K ctx ยท llama.cppEST.
35B
34.4 GB
309 tok/s
194K ctx
Image
| MAGI-1Video | 1280ร720 | 800ms/frame | A |
Image models estimated at 1024ร1024 (28 steps, FP16). Video models estimated at 768ร512 (25 frames, 30 steps, FP16). Actual performance varies with runtime and system load.
Buying advice
Should you buy NVIDIA H800 80GB for local AI?
Excellent choice for local AI
Runs 36 of 50 top models well โ a strong all-rounder for local inference.
What will limit you first
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
No major red flags
This recommendation has enough memory headroom and acceptable estimated speed for the selected workload.
Best upgrade itinerary
Unlocks 1 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.
Want more headroom? Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB (128.0 GB unified memory) is the next step up.