Compare · prices checked 2026-09-03
RTX 3090 vs RTX 3060: specs, price per hour, which to rent
NVIDIA RTX 3090 (24 GB, $0.104/hr) against NVIDIA RTX 3060 (12 GB, $0.041/hr): public specs side by side, live fixed prices from our sheet, what fits in each card's VRAM, and a verdict written for real workloads — both are rentable right now.
RTX 3090 vs RTX 3060 specifications
Public NVIDIA figures (dense, non-sparsity). The last column is RTX 3090 relative to RTX 3060.
| Spec | RTX 3090 | RTX 3060 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ampere (2020) | Ampere (2021) | — |
| VRAM | 24 GB GDDR6X | 12 GB GDDR6 | +100% |
| Memory bandwidth | 936 GB/s | 360 GB/s | +160% |
| FP16 tensor (dense) | 142 TFLOPS | 51 TFLOPS | +178% |
| FP32 | 35.6 TFLOPS | 12.7 TFLOPS | +180% |
| CUDA cores | 10,496 | 3,584 | +193% |
| TDP | 350 W | 170 W | +106% |
| PCIe · NVLink | Gen 4.0 · no NVLink | Gen 4.0 · no NVLink | — |
| PowerScore (RTX 3090 = 100) | 100 | 36 | +178% |
| Max GPUs per machine | 8× | 8× | — |
RTX 3090 vs RTX 3060 price per hour
Fixed rates from our sheet — every on-demand price is the marketplace median × 0.70, rounded down. Monthly = 730 hours.
| Rate | RTX 3090 | RTX 3060 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-demand, per GPU-hour | $0.104 | $0.041 | RTX 3060 (−61%) |
| Interruptible, per GPU-hour | $0.052 | $0.020 | RTX 3060 |
| Reserved (3 mo), per GPU-hour | $0.067 | $0.026 | RTX 3060 |
| On-demand, per month | $76 | $30 | RTX 3060 |
| Market median (reference) | $0.15 | $0.06 | — |
| $ per 1,000 FP16 TFLOP-hours | $0.73 | $0.80 | RTX 3090 (better value) |
| $ per GB of VRAM per hour | $0.0043 | $0.0034 | RTX 3060 (better value) |
Try a full month with storage and bandwidth in the GPU cost calculator.
What fits in VRAM: 24 GB vs 12 GB
| Workload | RTX 3090 | RTX 3060 |
|---|---|---|
| Largest LLM in FP16, one card | ~8B | ~3B |
| Largest LLM at 4-bit, one card | ~32B | ~14B |
| Flux dev (FP8, ~17 GB) | fits | no |
| Wan 2.x 14B video (offloaded) | yes | no |
| 70B 4-bit LLM on one card | no | no |
Rules of thumb: ~2.4 GB per billion parameters in FP16 all-in, ~0.62 GB in 4-bit. Full tables in the VRAM guide.
Verdict: which should you rent?
Both Ampere: the 3090 has 24 GB and about 2.8× the throughput of the 12 GB 3060. The 3060 is the cheapest way to run 7B–8B 4-bit models and SD 1.5; the 3090 opens 13B FP16, SDXL batches and LoRA training.
- Cheaper per hour: RTX 3060 ($0.041 vs $0.104, −61%).
- More VRAM: RTX 3090 (24 GB vs 12 GB).
- More FP16 throughput: RTX 3090 (about 2.8×).
- Best value per TFLOP-hour: RTX 3090.
- Best value per GB of VRAM: RTX 3060.
- Multi-GPU: RTX 3090 over PCIe · RTX 3060 over PCIe.
RTX 3090 vs RTX 3060: FAQ
Deeper reading: H100 vs H200 vs B200, RTX 4090 vs RTX 5090, how cloud GPU pricing works.
Is the RTX 3090 faster than the RTX 3060?
On dense FP16 tensor throughput the RTX 3090 leads by about 2.8× (142 vs 51 TFLOPS). Memory bandwidth matters as much for inference: RTX 3090 936 GB/s vs RTX 3060 360 GB/s.
Which is cheaper to rent, the RTX 3090 or the RTX 3060?
The RTX 3060: $0.041/hr on-demand versus $0.104/hr — 61% less. Interruptible rates are $0.052 (RTX 3090) and $0.020 (RTX 3060). Per TFLOP-hour the better value is the RTX 3090.
Which has more VRAM and what does that change?
The RTX 3090 has 24 GB versus 12 GB. In LLM terms that is roughly a 8B FP16 model (or ~32B in 4-bit) on one card against 3B FP16 (~14B 4-bit). If the model does not fit, speed is irrelevant.
Can I rent both on PowerGPU right now?
Yes — 429 × RTX 3090 and 222 × RTX 3060 are online as this page renders, deployable in about 30 seconds, billed per second, paid in crypto with no KYC.