Market insights

AWS P5 vs Thunder Compute: Pricing, Specs, and the Cheapest Way to Train (September 2025)

September 16, 2025
12 mins read

TL;DR

  • 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 (September 2025)

Provider SKU GPUs Memory per GPU Hourly price (node) Approx per-GPU
AWS P5 p5.48xlarge 8 × H100 80 GB ~$55–66 ~$6.8–8.25
AWS P4de.24xlarge 8 × A100 80 GB $40.96 $5.12
AWS P4d.24xlarge 8 × A100 40 GB $32.77 $4.10
Thunder Compute A100 80 GB 1 × A100 80 GB $0.78 $0.78

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

Specs Comparison

AWS P5 AWS P4de Thunder Compute
GPUs 8 × H100 8 × A100 1 × A100
GPU Memory 640 GB 640 GB 80 GB
System RAM 2 TiB 1.125 TiB 32 GB (customizable)
Storage 30.7 TB NVMe (ephemeral) 8 TB NVMe (ephemeral) Persistent block storage
Billing Per-second (60s min) Per-second (60s min) True per-second
Storage Cost EBS $0.08/GB Same $0.15/GB/month
Snapshots Standard $0.05/GB, Archive $0.0125/GB Same $0.075/GB (compressed)
Egress First 100GB free, then $0.09/GB Same Custom / bring-your-own CDN

Quick cost calculations

  • 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.

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