NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, AI & Machine Learning Comparison
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 wins 8 of 12 benchmarks, averaging 217.8% faster.
Both cards were measured first-party on our bench, same suite, same test rig.
What the numbers say
The gap is widest in Stable Diffusion XL, where NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 leads by 436% (3.04 vs 16.28 images/min); the closest fight is Qwen3 4B (106% apart); VRAM decides part of this one: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 runs 8 of our 12 AI workloads while the other card runs 3, models that don't fit score zero.
Benchmark results head-to-head
| Benchmark | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 4B tok/s | 126.36 | 260.54 | -52% |
| Llama 3.1 8B tok/s | 80.95 | 171.29 | -53% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 14B tok/s | 0 | 95.12 | n/a |
| Qwen3 32B tok/s | 0 | 44.28 | n/a |
| Llama 3.3 70B tok/s | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Stable Diffusion XL images/min | 3.04 | 16.28 | -81% |
| Z-Image Turbo images/min | 0 | 7.425 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 dev images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 Kontext dev images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Qwen-Image-Edit images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| LTX-Video (distilled) frames/s | 0 | 4.7 | n/a |
| Wan 2.2 5B (720p) frames/s | 0 | 0.43 | n/a |
Cost to rent
| Card | Per hour |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition | $0.049 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | $0.155 |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition is 3.16x cheaper per hour. Cheapest on-demand rate we see across RunPod and Vast.
Specifications compared
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 8GB | 24GB |
| Transistors | 17,400M | 76,300M |
| Die size | 392.5 mm² | 608.5 mm² |
| Transistor density | 44.3 M/mm² | 125.4 M/mm² |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ada Lovelace |
| Memory bandwidth | 448 GB/s | 1008 GB/s |
| Boost clock | 1,725 MHz | 2,520 MHz |
| TDP | 220 W | 450 W |
| Launch MSRP | $499 | $1,599 |
| Release | 2020-10-29 | 2022-10-12 |
FAQ
- Which is better for ai & machine learning: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 performs better for ai & machine learning, winning 8 of 12 benchmarks in our suite with an average 217.8% advantage.
- What are the main hardware differences between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition has 8GB VRAM and a 220W TDP, while NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 has 24GB VRAM and a 450W TDP.
- Does VRAM matter more than speed between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- For AI, yes, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 fits 5 more of our 12 workloads than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition. A model that exceeds VRAM doesn't run slower, it doesn't run at all, so the card that fits the model wins that workload outright.
- Where is the biggest performance difference between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?
- Stable Diffusion XL: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 leads by roughly 436% (3.04 vs 16.28 images/min) in our testing.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition full review · NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 full review · All AI & Machine Learning rankings