GeForce RTX 3080 Ti vs GeForce RTX 3090 for Local AI

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Which GPU is better for local AI workloads?

The 3080 Ti's 12GB caps it at 12B-class models; the 3090's 24GB holds 32B at Q4. The 3080 Ti's 912 GB/s bandwidth is close to the 3090's 936. For local LLMs the 3090 is the pick; for gaming the 3080 Ti ties.

Spec comparison: what actually differs

The table below is computed live from our hardware database. Positive deltas favor the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

Specification	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3090	Difference
VRAM	12	24	-50%
Memory bandwidth	912	936	-3%
Memory type	GDDR6X	GDDR6X	—
Memory bus	384	384	—
TDP	350	350	—
CUDA cores	10240	10496	-2%
Architecture	Ampere	Ampere	—
Launch MSRP	$1,199	$1,499	-20%
Street price	$1,199	$1,499	-20%

Specs from our sourced product database. See how we source data.

What about price?

Launch MSRP: $1199 (3080 Ti) versus $1499 (3090). Used: 3090 usually commands a premium for its VRAM.

Which one should you buy for LLMs and image generation?

NVIDIA · 2021

GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

Buy a used 3080 Ti only if priced like a 3080.

Full specs & benchmarks →

NVIDIA · 2020

GeForce RTX 3090

Buy the used 3090 for the 24GB.

Full specs & benchmarks →

Is it faster for LLM inference?

32B Q4 only on the 3090; 12B decode similar.

How does it handle image generation?

Both run SDXL; 3090's capacity enables batching.

Which AI models fit on each card?

Computed from our model VRAM database at Q4 quantization: GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 12 GB, GeForce RTX 3090 has 24 GB.

Fit only on the GeForce RTX 3090 (24 GB)

K2 Horizon 36B A4B (MoVA) ✓ Ornith 1.5 35B A3B ✓ Qwen3.6-35B-A3B ✓ Nex N2.5 Mini ✓ K2 Horizon 32B ✓ Edge0 35B A3B (preview) ✓ Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B ✓ Agnes 3.0 Flash ✓ DeepSeek R1-Distill 32B ✓ Qwen 3 32B ✓ Qwen2 5 Coder 32B ✓ Olmo 3 32B Think ✓ Gemma 4 31B IT ✓ Xing4.0-29B-A4B ✓ Qwen3 30B A3B ✓ Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct ✓ Granite 4.2 30B ✓ Qwen3.8-27B ✓ Qwen3.5-27B ✓ Qwen3.6-27B ✓ Gemma 3 27B ✓ Wan 2.2 (A14B & TI2V-5B) ✓ OUI 1 ✓ Gemma 4 26B A4B IT ✓ Mistral Small 3.2 24B ✓ Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct ✓ Magistral-Small-2509 ✓

Fit on both cards

Gpt Oss 20B Maple Preview Ling Mini 2.0 Deepseek R1 Distill Qwen 14B Qwen3 14B Confucius4-T3PO WebWorld-14B ContextPilot 14B Phi 4 Phi 3 Medium Ministral 3 14B Instruct Ministral 3 14B Reasoning Gemma 3 12B Mellum 2.1 Thinking FLUX.1 dev Gemma 4 12B IT Ornith 1.5 9B OxCoder 9B Gemma 2 9B K2 Horizon 7B NeoHorse 1 9B Ministral 3 8B Reasoning Ministral 3 8B Instruct Granite 4.2 8B LFM2.5 8B A1B Qwen 3 8B ALoDLM 8B Deepseek R1 Distill Llama 8B Llama 3.1 8B Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large Gemma 4 E4B IT Edge0 8B A1B (preview) Ling-3.0-tiny Qwen2 5 7B ZGCM-1 7B Mistral 7B V03 Gemma 4 E2B IT K2 Horizon 3.7B Gemma 3 4B Ministral 3 3B Reasoning NeoHorse 1 4B Nanbeige4.2 3B Spark X2.5 4B Qwen3 4B Ministral 3 3B Instruct Granite 4.2 3B Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 Llama 3 2 3B Granite Swash 3B A600M LFM2.5 2.6B MiniCPM5 2B Qwen3 1 7B Spark X2.5 1.7B Whisper large-v3 Llama 3 2 1B K2 Horizon 0.9B Coqui XTTS-v2 Qwen3 0 6B GPT-X3 150M

Q4_K_M-equivalent sizes; context and quantization choices shift real limits. Check each model page for full quantization tables.

Frequently asked questions

3080 Ti vs 3090 for local AI?

3090: 24GB versus 12GB is the whole story for LLM capacity. Bandwidth is nearly equal (912 vs 936 GB/s).

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