# NVIDIA H100 Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-h100/ 6 people recommended NVIDIA H100 in Hacker News comments, 12 had mixed feelings and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 12 months, in 6 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Criticized more than recommended, mainly for high purchase cost, power draw and failure rates; those who recommend it cite top AI training and cheap rental access. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. ## What people warn about - Very high purchase cost (2 comments in the sample): "The machine is expensive, yes, but the customers also pay a lot to get it's advantages." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48551114)) "Self-hosted 8xH100 is ~$250k, depreciated across three years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47239231)) - High power draw (2 comments in the sample): "H100 are cheap enough but the power requirements make it a long term net negative" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48519658)) "If you're still running H100s they draw >10x kWh/Mtoken as new designs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49444529)) - High failure rates (2 comments in the sample): "Nvidia GPUs, particularly H100s, have a failure rate orders of magnitudes higher than traditional CPU-only hardware" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46886397)) "Their failure rate is so high, I dont understand why anybody will even consider it feasible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46286150)) - Not enough memory for largest models (2 comments in the sample): "8 x h100 80's don't give you enough to run the latest 1tn + parameter models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47943244)) "it's too small to run even the frontier open source models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49014874)) ## Why people recommend it - Cheap hourly rental access (2 comments in the sample): "the easiest way to run them is by renting H100s or using a managed service offering" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48671658)) "being able to rent an H100 for 2$ an hour was very nice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980362)) - Unmatched performance for large workloads (2 comments in the sample): "A single H100 is so OP, so hosting thousands in a data centre it's expected that it should remain unrivalled." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47462902)) "a private H100SXM or B200 can go a long way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49815355)) - Good value for the price (2 comments in the sample): "At that price point I would rather go for a single H100." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49654431)) "For that price you get the H100." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49654979)) - Efficient at finishing training jobs (2 comments in the sample): "SXM was the most expensive per hour but cheapest to finish" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47264731)) "H100 to GB200 saw a 50x increase in efficiency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47816841)) ## Other datacenter GPUs people recommend - [NVIDIA Tesla V100](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-tesla-v100/): 13 recommend, 3 mixed, 4 criticize - [AMD Instinct MI355X](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amd-instinct/): 8 recommend, 4 mixed, 4 criticize - [NVIDIA GB300](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-gb300/): 7 recommend, 2 mixed, 1 criticize - [AMD Instinct MI300X](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amd-mi300x/): 7 recommend, 1 mixed, 6 criticize ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/h100/) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "NVIDIA H100", https://hackerapproved.com/p/nvidia-h100/ (6 recommend, 12 mixed, 14 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.