How big is the performance gap between NVIDIA A100 and H100, and how do I choose?

In large-model training, NVIDIA H100 delivers a marked speedup over A100: the Transformer Engine can raise training speed by up to 3x and inference throughput by more than 2x. H100 uses the Hopper architecture, offers about 50% higher memory bandwidth, and supports the new FP8 precision mode. A100 wins on price, suiting limited budgets or non-huge models. ZhongLianDa stocks A100 and H100 systems and advises on selection by model size and budget, with rent-before-buy and test-before-purchase options.