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AMD Instinct MI210 vs NVIDIA L40: Comparison
AMD Instinct MI210 and NVIDIA L40 separate most on memory bus width: AMD Instinct MI210 at 4096 bit, NVIDIA L40 at 384 bit, 91% in favour of AMD Instinct MI210. Memory Bandwidth splits them by another 46%, again favouring AMD Instinct MI210. They match on tdp, card length and pcie interface.
Specs
| Specification |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| GPU Brand | AMD | NVIDIA |
| Series | Instinct MI200 | RTX Ada Generation |
| Board Partner | AMD Reference (PCIe dual-slot card, data center/OEM only) | NVIDIA Reference (data center/OEM only, passive cooling) |
| VRAM | 64 GB | 48 GB-25% |
| Tier | Datacenter / AI Accelerator | Flagship |
| Memory Type | HBM2E | GDDR6 |
| Boost Clock | 1700 MHz-32% | 2490 MHz |
| Ray Tracing Support | false | true |
| TDP | 300 W | 300 W |
| Architecture | CDNA 2 (single Graphics Compute Die) | Ada Lovelace |
| Process Node | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 4N |
| Card Length | 267 mm | 267 mm |
| Slot Width | 2 (dual-slot, passive cooling for server airflow) | 2 |
| Memory Bus Width | 4096 bit | 384 bit-91% |
| Memory Bandwidth | 1600 GB/s | 864 GB/s-46% |
| Launch Date | 2022-03 | 2022-10 |
| PCIe Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| Display Outputs | N/A - compute-only, no display output | 4x DisplayPort 1.4a (rarely used in server deployment) |
Verdict
AMD Instinct MI210
7.3 / 10 Expert Rating
A practical, PCIe-slot-friendly way to get CDNA 2 compute into a standard server, useful for smaller HPC and AI deployments, but clearly the entry point of its generation next to the dual-die MI250X and now well behind the MI300 series.
NVIDIA L40
8.6 / 10 Expert Rating
A versatile data center GPU that genuinely splits the difference between graphics and AI workloads - since replaced by the L40S for AI-heavy deployments but still a strong all-rounder.