Compare · prices checked 2026-09-03
RTX 4090 vs RTX 3090: specs, price per hour, which to rent
NVIDIA RTX 4090 (24 GB, $0.262/hr) against NVIDIA RTX 3090 (24 GB, $0.104/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 4090 vs RTX 3090 specifications
Public NVIDIA figures (dense, non-sparsity). The last column is RTX 4090 relative to RTX 3090.
| Spec | RTX 4090 | RTX 3090 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace (2022) | Ampere (2020) | — |
| VRAM | 24 GB GDDR6X | 24 GB GDDR6X | same |
| Memory bandwidth | 1,008 GB/s | 936 GB/s | +8% |
| FP16 tensor (dense) | 330 TFLOPS | 142 TFLOPS | +132% |
| FP32 | 82.6 TFLOPS | 35.6 TFLOPS | +132% |
| CUDA cores | 16,384 | 10,496 | +56% |
| TDP | 450 W | 350 W | +29% |
| PCIe · NVLink | Gen 4.0 · no NVLink | Gen 4.0 · no NVLink | — |
| PowerScore (RTX 3090 = 100) | 232 | 100 | +132% |
| Max GPUs per machine | 8× | 8× | — |
RTX 4090 vs RTX 3090 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 4090 | RTX 3090 | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-demand, per GPU-hour | $0.262 | $0.104 | RTX 3090 (−60%) |
| Interruptible, per GPU-hour | $0.131 | $0.052 | RTX 3090 |
| Reserved (3 mo), per GPU-hour | $0.170 | $0.067 | RTX 3090 |
| On-demand, per month | $191 | $76 | RTX 3090 |
| Market median (reference) | $0.37 | $0.15 | — |
| $ per 1,000 FP16 TFLOP-hours | $0.79 | $0.73 | RTX 3090 (better value) |
| $ per GB of VRAM per hour | $0.0109 | $0.0043 | RTX 3090 (better value) |
Try a full month with storage and bandwidth in the GPU cost calculator.
What fits in VRAM: 24 GB vs 24 GB
| Workload | RTX 4090 | RTX 3090 |
|---|---|---|
| Largest LLM in FP16, one card | ~8B | ~8B |
| Largest LLM at 4-bit, one card | ~32B | ~32B |
| Flux dev (FP8, ~17 GB) | fits | fits |
| Wan 2.x 14B video (offloaded) | yes | yes |
| 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?
Same 24 GB, but the 4090 has Ada tensor cores, about 2.3× the FP16 throughput and a newer NVENC; the 3090 costs far less per hour. If throughput drives your bill, the 4090 wins; if VRAM capacity is all you need, the 3090 is the cheapest 24 GB rental.
- Cheaper per hour: RTX 3090 ($0.104 vs $0.262, −60%).
- More VRAM: RTX 4090 (24 GB vs 24 GB).
- More FP16 throughput: RTX 4090 (about 2.3×).
- Best value per TFLOP-hour: RTX 3090.
- Best value per GB of VRAM: RTX 3090.
- Multi-GPU: RTX 4090 over PCIe · RTX 3090 over PCIe.
Related comparisons
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RTX 4090 vs RTX 3090: FAQ
Deeper reading: H100 vs H200 vs B200, RTX 4090 vs RTX 5090, how cloud GPU pricing works.
Is the RTX 4090 faster than the RTX 3090?
On dense FP16 tensor throughput the RTX 4090 leads by about 2.3× (330 vs 142 TFLOPS). Memory bandwidth matters as much for inference: RTX 4090 1,008 GB/s vs RTX 3090 936 GB/s.
Which is cheaper to rent, the RTX 4090 or the RTX 3090?
The RTX 3090: $0.104/hr on-demand versus $0.262/hr — 60% less. Interruptible rates are $0.131 (RTX 4090) and $0.052 (RTX 3090). Per TFLOP-hour the better value is the RTX 3090.
Which has more VRAM and what does that change?
The RTX 4090 has 24 GB versus 24 GB. In LLM terms that is roughly a 8B FP16 model (or ~32B in 4-bit) on one card against 8B FP16 (~32B 4-bit). If the model does not fit, speed is irrelevant.
Can I rent both on PowerGPU right now?
Yes — 439 × RTX 4090 and 429 × RTX 3090 are online as this page renders, deployable in about 30 seconds, billed per second, paid in crypto with no KYC.