Bare Metal GPUs vs GPU Droplets
Learn the difference between bare metal GPUs and GPU Droplets to choose the product that suits your use case.
DigitalOcean Gradient™ AI Bare Metal GPU Features
Validated on 26 Jun 2025 • Last edited on 12 Dec 2025
DigitalOcean Gradient™ AI Bare Metal GPUs are dedicated, single-tenant servers with 8 GPUs of various models that can operate standalone or in multi-node clusters.
Bare Metal GPUs vs GPU Droplets
Bare metal GPUs and GPU Droplets both provide compute resources for AI and ML workloads, but they serve different use cases.
Hardware
Bare metal GPUs have the following hardware specifications.
AMD MI300X GPUs
| Name | Description | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| GPU module | AMD MI300X 8-GPU OAM 192GB 750W GPUs Assembly | 8 |
| CPU | Intel Xeon Platinum 8568Y+ | 2 |
| Memory | 64GB RDIMM, 5600 MT/s, Dual Rank | 32 |
| NVMe SSD storage | 7.68 TB NVMe | 8 |
| Network card | Nvidia ConnectX-7 Single Port Infiniband/Ethernet VPI 400 GbE/NDR OSFP | 8 |
| Network card | Broadcom Thor 2x 100GE QSFP28 | 2 |
H100 Bare Metal GPUs
| Name | Description | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| GPU module | NVIDIA HGX H100 80GB 700W SXM5 GPUs, fully interconnected with NVIDIA NVLink technology | 8 |
| CPU | Intel Xeon Platinum 8468 | 2 |
| Memory | 64GB | 32 |
| NVMe SSD storage | 7TB 2.5-inch NVMe SSD drives | 8 |
| Network card | Mellanox Network Adapter; Mellanox Technologies MT2910 Family [ConnectX-7]; link speed 400 Gbps | 8 |
| Network card | Mellanox Technologies MT2892 Family [ConnectX-6 Dx] ; link speed 100 Gbps | 4 |
H200 Bare Metal GPUs
| Name | Description | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| GPU module | NVIDIA HGX H200 141GB 700W SXM5 GPUs, fully interconnected with NVIDIA NVLink technology | 8 |
| CPU | Intel Xeon Platinum 8592+ | 2 |
| Memory | 64GB DDR5-5600MHz | 32 |
| NVMe SSD storage | 7.68TB NVMe | 8 |
| Network card | Mellanox Network Adapter; Mellanox Technologies MT2910 Family [ConnectX-7]; link speed 400 Gbps | 8 |
| Network card | Mellanox Technologies MT2892 Family [ConnectX-6Dx] ; link speed 100 Gbps | 4 |
Networking
Bare metal GPUs have the following network configuration:
| Network | Details |
|---|---|
| Public network | 1 public IP address (1:1 NAT) |
| Private network | 1 private IP address, layer 2 isolation |
| Public network bandwidth | North/South internet access up to 40 Gbps |
| Private network bandwidth | East/West (VPC/private network) up to 400 Gbps |
| GPU networking | 1 IPv6 auto-assigned for GPU RDMA (ConnectX-7 network) |
| GPU interconnect speed | 3.2 Tbps |
Software
Bare metal GPUs come preconfigured with one of the following software options:
| Software | AMD | NVIDIA Option 1 | NVIDIA Option 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating system | Ubuntu 22.04 | Ubuntu 22.04 | Ubuntu 24.04 |
| SSH remote access | Preloaded SSH keys | Preloaded SSH keys | Preloaded SSH keys |
| Driver versions | Preinstalled AMD ROCm drivers | Preinstalled NVIDIA CUDA drivers | Preinstalled NVIDIA CUDA drivers |
You can install your own driver versions, but we recommend using the preinstalled versions for stability. Support for custom or untested drivers is limited.