NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, AI & Machine Learning Comparison
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 wins 24 of 44 benchmarks, averaging -4.9% faster.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080's numbers are anchored estimates calibrated against our measured cards, pending first-party measurement. Treat small gaps as ties.
What the numbers say
The gap is widest in LTX-Video (distilled), where NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 leads by 71% (2.17 vs 3.705 frames/s); the closest fight is Granite 4.1 3B (1% apart); VRAM decides part of this one: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 runs 52 of our 12 AI workloads while the other card runs 35, models that don't fit score zero.
Benchmark results head-to-head
| Benchmark | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3 0.6B tok/s | 583.17 | 677.37 | -14% |
| Llama 3.2 1B tok/s | 632.21 | 602.28 | +5% |
| MiniCPM5 2B tok/s | 296.77 | 312.75 | -5% |
| LFM2.5 2.6B tok/s | 314.96 | 307.16 | +3% |
| Granite 4.1 3B tok/s | 227.46 | 226.16 | +1% |
| Nemotron 3 Nano 4B tok/s | 222.39 | 198 | +12% |
| Qwen3 4B tok/s | 206.67 | 201.76 | +2% |
| DeepSeek Coder 7B Instruct v1.5 tok/s | 164.74 | 143.42 | +15% |
| Qwen2.5-7B tok/s | 156.51 | 134.28 | +17% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 7B tok/s | 156.52 | 134.36 | +16% |
| Llama 3 8B tok/s | 146.34 | 127.3 | +15% |
| Llama 3.1 8B tok/s | 144.9 | 127.09 | +14% |
| Qwen3 8B tok/s | 137.59 | 123.68 | +11% |
| Nemotron Nano 9B v2 tok/s | 108.86 | 91.27 | +19% |
| Ornith 1.5 9B tok/s | 124.77 | 109.71 | +14% |
| Gemma 4 12B tok/s | 85.77 | 78.94 | +9% |
| Qwen2.5-Coder 14B tok/s | 78.79 | 69.93 | +13% |
| Qwen3 14B tok/s | 81.11 | 70.88 | +14% |
| gpt-oss-20b tok/s | 231.97 | 220.65 | +5% |
| Gemma 4 26B A4B tok/s | 154.33 | 0 | n/a |
| Qwen3 30B A3B tok/s | 202.26 | 0 | n/a |
| Gemma 4 31B tok/s | 39.2 | 0 | n/a |
| Qwen3 32B tok/s | 37.95 | 0 | n/a |
| Llama 3.3 70B tok/s | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Stable Diffusion 1.5 images/min | 38.24 | 51.23 | -25% |
| SDXL Turbo images/min | 332.99 | 484.82 | -31% |
| Sana 1.6B images/min | 20.6 | 27.92 | -26% |
| Stable Diffusion XL images/min | 7.46 | 10.16 | -27% |
| Playground v2.5 images/min | 4.79 | 6.33 | -24% |
| PixArt-Sigma XL images/min | 10.9 | 14.6 | -25% |
| Z-Image Turbo images/min | 3.825 | 3.07 | +25% |
| FLUX.1 Kontext dev images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| FLUX.1 dev images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Qwen-Image-Edit images/min | 0 | 0 | n/a |
| Wan 2.1 1.3B frames/s | 0.341 | 0.38 | -10% |
| LTX-Video (distilled) frames/s | 2.17 | 3.705 | -41% |
| CogVideoX-2B frames/s | 0.241 | 0.31 | -22% |
| CogVideoX-5B frames/s | 0.083 | 0.111 | -25% |
| Stable Video Diffusion clips/min | 1.065 | 1.438 | -26% |
| Wan 2.2 5B (720p) frames/s | 0.22 | 0 | n/a |
| LTX-Video (image to video) clips/min | 2.165 | 1.873 | +16% |
| Wan 2.2 TI2V-5B (image to video) clips/min | 0.605 | 0.798 | -24% |
| Stable Video Diffusion XT clips/min | 0.494 | 0.814 | -39% |
| CogVideoX-5B I2V clips/min | 0.15 | 0.218 | -31% |
Whole-job comparison
How long each card takes to finish a complete pipeline, not just one model. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is faster on 1 of 2; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 on 1.
| Workflow | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 | Difference | Cost per run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full codebase review | 12.7 min | 14.3 min | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 1.13x faster | $0.030 vs $0.054 |
| Animate a batch of images | 33.1 min | 25.1 min | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 1.32x faster | $0.079 vs $0.095 |
Renting by the hour, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 finishes 2 of 2 cheaper. The quicker card is not automatically the cheaper way to get the work done.
Cost to rent
| Card | Per hour |
|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | $0.143 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 | $0.228 |
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is 1.59x cheaper per hour. Cheapest on-demand rate we see across RunPod and Vast.
Specifications compared
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 | |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24GB | 16GB |
| Transistors | 28,300M | 45,900M |
| Die size | 628.4 mm² | 378.6 mm² |
| Process node | 8 nm | 4 nm |
| Transistor density | 45 M/mm² | 121.2 M/mm² |
| Architecture | Ampere (GA102) | Ada Lovelace (AD103) |
| Memory bandwidth | 936.2 GB/s | 716.8 GB/s |
| Boost clock | 1,695 MHz | 2,505 MHz |
| TDP | 350 W | 320 W |
| Launch MSRP | $1,499 | $1,199 |
| Release | 2020-09-24 | 2022-11-16 |
FAQ
- Which is better for ai & machine learning: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 performs better for ai & machine learning, winning 24 of 44 benchmarks in our suite with an average -4.9% advantage.
- What are the main hardware differences between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080?
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 has 24GB VRAM and a 350W TDP, while NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 has 16GB VRAM and a 320W TDP.
- Does VRAM matter more than speed between NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080?
- For AI, yes, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 fits 5 more of our 12 workloads than NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080. 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 3090 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080?
- LTX-Video (distilled): NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 leads by roughly 71% (2.17 vs 3.705 frames/s) in our testing.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 full review · NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 full review · All AI & Machine Learning rankings