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NVIDIA H100 SXM vs AMD Instinct MI250: Spec Comparison & Buyer's Guide

In AI infrastructure selection, NVIDIA H100 SXM and AMD Instinct MI250 are two accelerators frequently compared. This article contrasts them item by item — architecture, compute, memory, power, and release cadence — to help you quickly judge which fits training or inference workloads.

Spec Comparison Table​

VendorNVIDIA H100 SXMAMD Instinct MI250
VendorNVIDIAAMD
ArchitectureHopper GH100CDNA 2
ProcessTSMC 4NTSMC 6nm
Release Date2022 3 GTC2021-11-08
FP8 Compute3,958 TFLOPS—
FP16 Compute——
FP32 Compute67 TFLOPS47.9 TFLOPS
INT8 Compute——
Memory Type——
Memory Capacity80 GB HBM3128 GB HBM2e
Memory Bandwidth3.35 TB/s3,276.8 GB/s
TDP Power700 W500 W

Key Differences​

  • Power: AMD Instinct MI250 has a TDP of 500 W, lower than NVIDIA H100 SXM's 700 W, friendlier to datacenter PUE and cooling.
  • Memory capacity: AMD Instinct MI250 packs 128 GB HBM2e, more than NVIDIA H100 SXM's 80 GB HBM3, more comfortable for single-card hosting of very large models.

Selection Advice​

  • When chasing extreme single-card compute and a mature toolchain, prioritize NVIDIA H100 SXM; if budget, power wall, or local support are hard constraints, AMD Instinct MI250 often fits better. Use this site's AI Compute Card Comparison Tool to validate multiple chips side-by-side before deciding.

FAQ​

What are the main differences between NVIDIA H100 SXM and AMD Instinct MI250?​

The core difference is architecture and compute density: NVIDIA H100 SXM uses Hopper GH100, FP8 ~3,958 TFLOPS, memory 80 GB HBM3; AMD Instinct MI250 uses CDNA 2, FP8 ~No public FP8 data, memory 128 GB HBM2e. See the comparison table above.

What is the TDP (power) of NVIDIA H100 SXM?​

NVIDIA H100 SXM has a TDP of 700 W; actual whole-system power also includes board, fans, and PUE.

Which is better for large-model training / inference?​

Training values memory capacity, bandwidth, and multi-card interconnect; inference values single-card throughput and power efficiency. Combine the "Key Differences" and "Selection Advice" above with your batch size, model size, and SLA.

How much do NVIDIA H100 SXM and AMD Instinct MI250 differ in memory capacity?​

NVIDIA H100 SXM is 80 GB HBM3, AMD Instinct MI250 is 128 GB HBM2e; the gap directly affects loadable model size and context length.