# Nvidia A100

10 Hacker News commenters recommended Nvidia A100 and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Long-lived datacenter GPU that people still run for AI and compute work years after release; the most common caveat is that it can be unreliable under long runs.

## Why people recommend it

- Reliable after six years of use (2 comments): "A100s are 6 years old at this point and still in heavy use." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50303648)) "A100s are 6 years old and still a reliable work-horse" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48278398))
- Viable cheaper alternative to Mac Studio (2 comments): "that's not more expensive and certainly can't be slower than a Mac Studio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49158093)) "Maybe two/four of the older A100/A6000 could do the trick too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45878351))

## What people warn about

- Unreliable over long runs (2 comments): "it was hard to keep it running for more than a few days" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46731501)) "my numbers have GPUs faring even worse" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724942))
- Expensive to buy or rent (2 comments): "Nvidia A100 (80GB VRAM) apparently cost $15,000 or so" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48625979)) "What we're paying for five old 80GB A100s is criminal" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47709055))
- Resale value collapsing toward scrap (2 comments): "there's a massive A100 liquidation sale that happened recently" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50307806)) "Those A100s aren't far from being sold for scrap." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48699375))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [NVIDIA H100](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-h100.md): 20 recommend
- [NVIDIA Tesla V100](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-tesla-v100.md): 16 recommend
- [AMD Instinct MI355X](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amd-instinct.md): 14 recommend
- [Intel D270 GPU AI Accelerator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/intel-d270-gpu-ai-accelerator.md): 10 recommend
- [NVIDIA B200](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-b200.md): 9 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=NVIDIA+A100+GPU&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Nvidia A100", https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-a100-gpu/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).