Comparison
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 for local LLMs
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB (12GB usable, 360 GB/s) vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB usable, 1010 GB/s) for local LLMs: capacity decides which models load at all, memory bandwidth decides the speed tier. Verdicts below are computed per model at each machine's best clean quant.
| Spec | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 |
|---|---|---|
| Type | NVIDIA GPU | NVIDIA GPU |
| Memory for models | 12 GB VRAM | 24 GB VRAM |
| Memory bandwidth | 360 GB/s | 1010 GB/s |
| Price | $329 MSRP | $1,599 MSRP |
| TDP | 170 W | 450 W |
| Backends | CUDA · Vulkan | CUDA · Vulkan |
| Gaming (estimate) | 1080p-class | 4K-class |
Specs as of 2026-07-08 — sources on each product page. Gaming tier is estimated from FP32 compute, not a game benchmark.
What each can run, head to head
The 12 most-downloaded models we track, each graded at that machine's best clean-fit quant (llama.cpp, 8K context). Click a verdict for the full breakdown.
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission. Verdicts are computed before any link is attached.
Verdicts computed from published specs and measured GGUF sizes — how the math works.