Chip comparison
Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) vs NVIDIA L40S
Side-by-side specs
Straight from each vendor's datasheet. Winner in bold: higher throughput, memory, or transistor count; lower power draw or price. Sparse (2:4) throughput roughly doubles the FP8/INT8 numbers shown.
| Field | Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) | NVIDIA L40S |
|---|---|---|
| Process node | GlobalFoundries 14nm | TSMC 4N |
| Transistors (B) | — | 76.3 |
| TDP | 375 W | 350 W |
| Memory | 0.23 GB SRAM (230 MB on-die) | 48 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bandwidth | 80,000 GB/s | 864 GB/s |
| FP16 (dense) | 188 TFLOPS | 362 TFLOPS |
| BF16 (dense) | — | 362 TFLOPS |
| FP8 (dense) | — | 733 TFLOPS |
| INT8 (dense) | 750 TOPS | 733 TOPS |
| Form factor | PCIe (GroqCard) / rack-scale GroqRack | PCIe |
| Announced | 2020-01-01 | 2023-08-08 |
| Released | 2021-06-01 | — |
Robots running Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit)
No robots publicly running it yet.
Robots running NVIDIA L40S
No robots publicly running it yet.
Data centers with Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit)
No data centers publicly running it yet.
Data centers with NVIDIA L40S
No data centers publicly running it yet.
Common questions
Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) vs NVIDIA L40S: which is faster for training?
NVIDIA L40S has 3.90x the dense FP16/BF16 throughput of the other (Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): 188 TFLOPS; NVIDIA L40S: 733 TFLOPS). Real-world training speed also depends on memory bandwidth, interconnect, and software stack: see the spec diff for those inputs.
Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) vs NVIDIA L40S: which has more memory?
NVIDIA L40S carries more HBM (Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): 0.23 GB SRAM (230 MB on-die); NVIDIA L40S: 48 GB GDDR6). Memory capacity sets the largest model that fits on one chip without partitioning; memory bandwidth sets inference throughput.
Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) vs NVIDIA L40S: which is more power-efficient?
Dense FP16/BF16 TFLOPS per watt: Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) 0.50 (188 ÷ 375 W); NVIDIA L40S 2.09 (733 ÷ 350 W). NVIDIA L40S wins at the die level; system-level efficiency also depends on cooling and interconnect.
See also: every chip comparison · Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) full page · NVIDIA L40S full page.