GeForce RTX 3090 Ti vs GeForce RTX 4090 for Local AI

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Which GPU is better for local AI workloads?

Identical memory configuration means identical model selection: 32B at Q4, 14B at Q8. The 4090's roughly 60% compute lead accelerates prompt processing and image generation sharply; LLM decode stays close because bandwidth ties at 1008 GB/s. Both are 450W cards.

Spec comparison: what actually differs

The table below is computed live from our hardware database. Positive deltas favor the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

Specification	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti	GeForce RTX 4090	Difference
VRAM	24	24	—
Memory bandwidth	1008	1008	—
Memory type	GDDR6X	GDDR6X	—
Memory bus	384	384	—
TDP	450	450	—
CUDA cores	10752	16384	-34%
Architecture	Ampere	Ada Lovelace	—
Launch MSRP	$1,999	$1,599	+25%
Street price	$1,999	$1,599	+25%

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

What about price?

Launch MSRP: $1999 (3090 Ti) versus $1599 (4090). Used: 4090s command a premium.

Which one should you buy for LLMs and image generation?

NVIDIA · 2022

GeForce RTX 3090 Ti

Buy a used 3090 Ti when priced well under a 4090.

Full specs & benchmarks →

NVIDIA · 2022

GeForce RTX 4090

Buy the used 4090 for throughput — check connector condition.

Full specs & benchmarks →

Is it faster for LLM inference?

Same models, near-equal decode (1008 GB/s each), much faster prefill on the 4090.

How does it handle image generation?

4090 significantly faster per batch.

Which AI models fit on each card?

Computed from our model VRAM database at Q4 quantization: GeForce RTX 3090 Ti has 24 GB, GeForce RTX 4090 has 24 GB.

Fit on both cards

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 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

3090 Ti vs 4090 — same 24GB, what differs for AI?

Compute: the 4090 processes prompts and generates images much faster. LLM decode ties because both have 1008 GB/s bandwidth.

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