NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB for local AI
The GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB holds 34 of the 50 current models here, and the GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB holds 29. The GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB costs $500 less, both priced as the card alone, without the PC around either. On Qwen3.8 27B, the strongest model both hold, the GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB is about 1.7× faster: 66 tok/s against 38, both estimated from memory bandwidth. The GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB pays for itself sooner, in 94 years against 123 years at 500k tokens a day. The GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB is the previous generation, so every figure here for it is priced at what it launched at rather than at a price you can pay today.
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1,999card only | $1,499card only |
| Memory | 32 GB | 24 GB |
| Usable by the GPU | 31 GB | 23 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 1792 GB/s | 936 GB/s |
| Power under load | 575 W | 350 W |
| Models that fit | 34 | 29 |
| Best model it runs | Qwen3.8 27B | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Speed on that model | 66 tok/s estimated | 38 tok/s estimated |
| Pay-back on that model | Pays back in 123 years | Pays back in 94 years |
Run the numbers on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB · or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB
How much use it takes to pay back
Everything above is at 500k tokens a day. Pay-back moves with how much you actually run, so here are both machines on Qwen3.8 27B, the strongest model both hold, at the five levels of use the calculator names. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB pays back sooner at every level of use, so this is not a choice that turns on how hard you work it.
| A day's use | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB |
|---|---|---|
| 50ka few chats a day | 1,228 years | 940 years |
| 200klight assistant use | 307 years | 235 years |
| 1Ma moderate coding-assistant day | 61 years | 47 years |
| 4Mheavy coding with an agent | 15 years | 12 years |
| 20Magents running most of the day | 3.1 years | 2.4 years |
Run the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB at 20M tokens a day · or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB
What the extra memory buys
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB holds 5 models the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB cannot at 32k of context. The strongest of them are what the difference in memory actually buys.
| Model | Weights | Needs at 32k | On the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 31B itHaiku-class | 20 GB | 23 GB | 53 tok/s estimated |
| Granite 4.2 30BHaiku-class | 18 GB | 26 GB | 47 tok/s estimated |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3BBelow every hosted tier | 25 GB | 26 GB | 226 tok/s estimated |
| Flint 40B-A2.5Bnot yet placed | 25 GB | 26 GB | 232 tok/s estimated |
| Nanbeige4.3 33Bnot yet placed | 21 GB | 28 GB | 45 tok/s estimated |
The extra memory buys context as well. Of the 29 current models both machines hold at 32k, 13 run to a longer window on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB: the weights are a fixed size and the KV cache is not, so what the weights leave spare is what a longer context grows into. Qwen3.6 35B-A3B reaches 256k there against 32k on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB, each the longest window the calculator offers that the machine still holds it at.
The GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB is also head to head with another card: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, 96GB · GeForce RTX 4090, 24GB · Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB · GeForce RTX 4080, 16GB · GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB. With a complete computer: Framework Desktop, 64GB · MacBook Pro M5 (14-inch), 16GB.
The GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB is also head to head with another card: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, 96GB · GeForce RTX 4090, 24GB · Radeon AI PRO R9700, 32GB · GeForce RTX 4080, 16GB · GeForce RTX 3060, 12GB.
The assumptions behind both columns
Both columns use the same usage: 500k tokens a day at 15:1 input to output, 32k of context, $0.17 per kWh, and today's API prices held flat. Speeds marked estimated are worked out from memory bandwidth rather than measured, and pay-back scales with them. Both are priced as the card alone, so neither figure includes the PC to put it in. All seven cards here are ranked by what each one holds. Change any of it in the calculator.
More head to head: everything the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 32GB runs · everything the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, 24GB runs · every other match-up · the quickest pay-back at each level of use · every model against the frontier