AWS P5 vs Thunder Compute: Pricing, Specs, and the Cheapest Way to Train with H100s or A100s (August 2025)

TLDR

• Need a massive, multi-node H100 cluster? AWS P5 gives you 8× H100s per node, 3,200 Gbps networking, and 30.7 TB NVMe. Price: ~$55–66/hr depending on region.

• Want the cheapest, no-commitment way to fine-tune or serve models? Thunder Compute offers A100 80 GB for $0.78/hr, billed per second with persistent storage and one-click VS Code.

• AWS adds separate costs for storage and data egress — up to 0.08/GB/month for EBS and 0.09/GB for egress after 100 GB.

• AWS requires quotas and has a 60-second billing minimum. Thunder Compute doesn’t.

What each platform is best at

• AWS P5: Multi-node H100 clusters, ultra-fast networking, and deep AWS integration.

• Thunder Compute: Low-cost A100 80 GB with persistent storage, per-second billing, snapshots, and fast setup — perfect for prototyping, fine-tuning, and inference.

Pricing Snapshot (August 2025)

Note: AWS pricing varies by region and is subject to quotas. Thunder Compute pricing is flat and usage-based.

Specs Comparison

Cost Math That Matters

• 8× A100 80 GB Equivalent

  • Thunder Compute: 8 × $0.78 = $6.24/hr

  • AWS P4de: $40.96/hr

  • Savings: Thunder is ~6.6x cheaper

• 8× H100

  • AWS P5: ~$55–66/hr

  • Thunder H100s (coming soon): $1.47/hr × 8 = $11.76/hr

If you don't need P5-level networking, Thunder is cheaper by a large margin for nearly all fine-tuning, eval, and model serving tasks.

Storage and Persistence

• AWS: Ephemeral storage. To persist data, you’ll need to add EBS volumes (0.08/GB/mo), pay for snapshots, and budget for data egress.

• Thunder Compute: Persistent storage by default. You can stop and resume without data loss. Snapshots and spec changes (RAM, disk, vCPU) are one click.

Billing and Availability

• AWS: Per-second billing, but with a 60-second minimum. Many GPU families (like P5) require a quota request before use. See AWS quotas.

• Thunder Compute: No quotas. Start instantly. Full per-second billing with no minimums and no lock-in.

When to Choose Each

Use AWS P5 if:

• You need UltraCluster networking

• You're running massively parallel H100 jobs

• You require tight AWS service integration

Use Thunder Compute if:

• You want the cheapest A100 80 GB

• You need persistent storage and snapshots

• You want no lock-in and a simple interface

Get Started

• Spin up an A100 80 GB at $0.78/hr with persistent storage and per-second billing on Thunder Compute.

• If needed, migrate to AWS P5 later for high-scale training.