Rent a GPU for fine-tuning, sized by arithmetic you can check.
GPU Rent Hub rents dedicated NVIDIA and AMD GPUs for fine-tuning by the week or month, from $190 a month for a 24 GB card that runs QLoRA on a 7B model to $12,170 a month for an NVLink-connected 8× H100 SXM node, paid in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, USDC, Monero, Solana or Litecoin with no identity verification.
How much GPU memory does fine-tuning actually need?
This is the part people get wrong, and it is the only part that decides which card you rent.
Fine-tuning memory in one paragraph. A full fine-tune with the Adam optimiser costs about 16 bytes per parameter: 2 for the BF16 weights, 2 for the gradients, 4 for the FP32 master copy and 4 each for Adam's two moment states. A 7B model therefore needs roughly 112 GB before a single activation is stored, which does not fit a 24 GB card and does not fit an 80 GB card either. LoRA freezes the base weights and trains small adapter matrices, so the bill falls to the frozen base at 2 bytes per parameter plus a few hundred megabytes of adapter and optimiser state: about 21 GB for a 7B. QLoRA quantises that frozen base to 4 bits, 0.5 bytes per parameter, and trains the same adapters: about 10 GB for a 7B and about 51 GB for a 70B.
Those three figures, and every one in the table below, are the GPU VRAM guide's, on its assumptions: gradient checkpointing on, sequence length 2,048, batch 1, rank-16 adapters at about 0.5% of parameters, and a runtime overhead allowance already included. Raise the sequence length or the batch and activations grow on top.
Where the 16 comes from
Nothing in a training loop stores the model once. Weights, a gradient of the same shape, an FP32 master copy, and Adam's mean and variance per parameter. No framework negotiates that away.
What LoRA removes
The gradient and both optimiser states, for everything but the adapters. The frozen base still has to be resident, which is why LoRA on a BF16 7B is still 14 GB before anything else. QLoRA attacks residency, not the optimiser.
Which GPU do I need to fine-tune a 7B, 13B or 70B model?
Model against method against a card that holds it, with the VRAM quoted from the VRAM guide. Per GPU-hour is monthly divided by 720.
| Model and method | VRAM needed | Card that fits | Card VRAM | Weekly | Monthly | Per GPU-hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7B, QLoRA4-bit base, rank 16 | 10 GB | RTX A5000 | 24 GB | $55 | $190/mo | $0.26 |
| 13B, QLoRA4-bit base | 14 GB | RTX 3090 | 24 GB | $65 | $230/mo | $0.32 |
| 7B, LoRABF16 base held resident | 21 GB | RTX 4090 | 24 GB | $110 | $390/mo | $0.54 |
| 34B, QLoRA4-bit base | 28 GB | A40 | 48 GB | $68 | $240/mo | $0.33 |
| 13B, LoRABF16 base | 33 GB | L40S | 48 GB | $148 | $520/mo | $0.72 |
| 70B, QLoRA35 GB of 4-bit weights | 51 GB | A100 SXM | 80 GB | $280 | $990/mo | $1.38 |
| 34B, LoRABF16 base, one card | 79 GB | MI300X | 192 GB | $450 | $1,590/mo | $2.21 |
| 7B, full fine-tuneAdam, 16 bytes per parameter | 129 GB | 2× A100 SXMNVLink 600 GB/s, the cheapest CUDA path | 160 GB | $532 | $1,881/mo | $1.31 |
| 70B, LoRABF16 base, one card | 156 GB | 1× MI300Xno sharding needed | 192 GB | $450 | $1,590/mo | $2.21 |
| 70B, full fine-tuneZeRO-3 across the node | 1,288 GB | 8× MI300XInfinity Fabric 896 GB/s | 1,536 GB | $3,240 | $11,450/mo | $1.99 |
Read row eight against row six. A full fine-tune of a 7B costs about twice what QLoRA on a 70B costs. For most people it is not the job they need doing.
Which GPU should you rent for training, if you had to pick one?
Sorted by what we would deploy for a multi-week run, not by price. Stock is across DFW-1 Dallas, IAD-1 Ashburn and PDX-1 Hillsboro.
| GPU | VRAM | Interconnect | Weekly | Monthly | Per GPU-hour | Free now |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H100 SXM PickHBM3, 3.35 TB/s, FP8 | 80 GB | NVLink 900 GB/s | $475 | $1,690/mo | $2.35 | 63 |
| A100 SXMHBM2e, 2.04 TB/s, no FP8 | 80 GB | NVLink 600 GB/s | $280 | $990/mo | $1.38 | 78 |
| H200 SXMHBM3e, 4.8 TB/s | 141 GB | NVLink 900 GB/s | $640 | $2,290/mo | $3.18 | 19 |
| MI300XROCm 6.4, 5.3 TB/s | 192 GB | Infinity Fabric 896 GB/s | $450 | $1,590/mo | $2.21 | 8 |
| L40SGDDR6 ECC, FP8 | 48 GB | PCIe Gen4 peer-to-peer | $148 | $520/mo | $0.72 | 74 |
| RTX A6000GDDR6 ECC, 768 GB/s | 48 GB | NVLink bridge 112 GB/s, pairs | $82 | $290/mo | $0.40 | 65 |
| RTX 3090GDDR6X, 936 GB/s | 24 GB | NVLink bridge 112 GB/s, pairs | $65 | $230/mo | $0.32 | 186 |
| RTX A5000GDDR6 ECC, 230 W | 24 GB | NVLink bridge 112 GB/s, pairs | $55 | $190/mo | $0.26 | 51 |
The H100 SXM is the pick: the cheapest card we rent that puts 80 GB of HBM3, FP8 tensor cores and 900 GB/s of NVLink on one part number. The A100 SXM 80 GB is the value answer at $990, no FP8, same NVLink topology, 59% of the price.
Why does NVLink matter above one card?
Because a sharded run moves gradients between cards on every step, and the link is the floor on how fast that happens.
On one GPU the interconnect is irrelevant. The moment you shard, with ZeRO-2, ZeRO-3 or tensor parallelism, the cards exchange gradients or parameter shards every step, and that traffic is a fixed multiple of the model size. PCIe Gen4 x16 has a line rate of about 32 GB/s in one direction, and Gen5 about 63. NVLink on an H100 SXM is 900 GB/s. That is the difference between a communication step that hides behind compute and one that becomes the step.
The rule: single-card LoRA or QLoRA runs on anything with enough VRAM, data-parallel training tolerates PCIe, and anything that shards a model wants NVLink. Above four cards it wants NVSwitch, which the 8-way HGX nodes on the multi-GPU cluster rental page carry.
| Card | Link between cards | Bandwidth | Sharded training |
|---|---|---|---|
| B2002, 4 or 8 way | NVLink 5 with NVSwitch | 1.8 TB/s | Yes, to 8 cards |
| H100 SXM, H200 SXM | NVLink with NVSwitch | 900 GB/s | Yes, to 8 cards |
| A100 SXM | NVLink with NVSwitch | 600 GB/s | Yes, to 8 cards |
| MI300X | Infinity Fabric | 896 GB/s | Yes, 8-way only |
| H100 PCIe | Optional NVLink bridge | 600 GB/s | Pairs |
| A6000, A40, 3090, A5000 | NVLink bridge | 112 GB/s | Pairs |
| L40S, RTX 6000 Ada, L4 | PCIe Gen4 peer-to-peer | ~32 GB/s | Data parallel only |
| RTX 4090, RTX 5090 | PCIe peer-to-peer, no NVLink | ~32 / ~63 GB/sGen4 x16 / Gen5 x16 | Single card |
Why is a monthly term the right shape for a training run?
A fine-tune is the workload where the billing model and the job agree with each other.
Checkpoint cadence is yours
On preemptible capacity you checkpoint defensively, because the interval is a hedge against eviction. On a term it is a recovery decision: write every thousand steps if the loss curve deserves it, or every ten thousand.
A fine-tune is rarely one run
A learning-rate sweep, a data ablation and a rerun after the evaluation disappoints are three more runs, arriving over a fortnight rather than in one booking. Each costs nothing extra on a flat term.
It cannot be evicted
An eviction at hour 60 costs the gap since the last checkpoint, the requeue wait and the dataset reload. A term cannot be preempted, because nobody else is queued for the card.
The dataset stays resident
Between runs the working set sits on local NVMe, 2 TB on an H100 SXM and 1 TB on an A100, so sweep two starts at the first step rather than at a download.
The crossover arithmetic against a meter belongs to monthly versus hourly GPU rental, and it is worth reading before you take a term. What is specific to training is that the sweeps and the reloads count as GPU-hours too, so the utilisation figure you should test the crossover with is the fortnight, not the single run.
Where do checkpoints go, and what survives the end of a term?
A 70B checkpoint with optimiser state is over a terabyte. Decide where it lands before step 4,000.
- Local NVMe
- Included: 2 TB on H100 SXM and H200, 1 TB on A100 SXM, 500 GB on L40S and A6000. LUKS2-encrypted per instance, wiped seven days after term end.
- Extra local NVMe
- $9 per TB a month, up to 30 TB on a node. Same host, same encryption.
- Network volume
- $14 per TB a month, triple-replicated in the region, attachable to several instances, persistent after release.
- Snapshots
- $6 per TB a month. Restorable to any instance in the region, which is how a run moves from an A100 to an H100 without re-uploading the dataset.
- Pulling it out
- 20 TB of outbound included per instance per month, then $4 per TB. An adapter set never touches that limit.
If the run outlives the balance
Terms renew from your balance 24 hours early. If it is short the instance stops and the slot is held for 72 hours while you top up in BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, XMR, SOL or LTC. The disk is untouched. After that the slot is released and the NVMe key destroyed.
Hardware sits in DFW-1, IAD-1 and PDX-1. An account is a username and a password: see no KYC GPU hosting and how to pay with crypto.
When should you not rent a fine-tuning GPU from us?
Three cases, common enough that we would rather write them down.
The second is over-buying the card. Plenty of people rent an H100 to fine-tune a 7B with QLoRA, which needs 10 GB. That job runs on a $190 RTX A5000, slower, but not nine times slower. Size from the table in section 02, not from the model you wish you were training.
The third is a run needing 32 or 64 cards for two days and never again. We sell nodes up to eight cards; beyond that a metered cluster provider fits better.
Rent by the hour if
Your total is under roughly 480 to 680 GPU-hours a month, which is where $1,690 for an H100 SXM month meets an illustrative $2.49 to $3.49 meter, or you want an hour each on an A100 SXM and an H100 SXM to time your step.
Rent a term if
The run is measured in weeks, re-uploading the dataset hurts, you have been evicted from spot capacity once already, or you want to pay in crypto without an identity check.
Renting a GPU for fine-tuning, asked plainly.
How much VRAM do I need to fine-tune a 7B model?
Can I fine-tune a 70B model on one GPU?
What is the difference between LoRA and QLoRA in GPU memory?
Do I need NVLink to fine-tune on multiple GPUs?
How much does it cost to rent a GPU for training per month?
What happens to my checkpoints when the term ends?
Can I rent a training GPU with no identity verification?
Is monthly GPU rental better than hourly for a training run?
Sizing on the GPU VRAM guide, topologies on multi-GPU cluster rental, serving the result on GPU for LLM inference, images in the documentation.
Size the card, take the term, start the run.
QLoRA on 24 GB from $190 a month, an NVLink H100 SXM from $1,690, an 8-way node from $12,170. Minimum deposit $20 equivalent, no ID, no card.