local intelligence

will it local

Best local LLMs for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

24GB · Ada

Still the prosumer king. LocalScore 8B median: 120 tok/s gen, LocalScore 1727, TTFT 176 ms (accelerator/1704). TPU: 16384 CUDA / 512 Tensor cores, 21 Gbps effective GDDR6X, launched Sept 20 2022 at $1599.

explore the full catalogupgrade paths with live prices · what fits on each machine

Speed

computed band 90.0-150.0 tok/s for 8B Q4_K_M (roofline, 1008.0 GB/s VRAM); community: 120 tok/s Llama 3.1 8B Instruct Q4_K_M (https://www.localscore.ai/accelerator/1704)

Effective decode window: 0.46–0.76 of 1008 GB/s nominal → ~464–766 GB/s effective (llama.cpp decode, Q4_K_M basis; arch window, community-calibrated)

Community check — localmaxxing.com medians (1 bucket): localmaxxing.com

→ ~43 tok/s · 30-33B Q4 · 3 runs · just above our band (15% over the high edge)

What fits (computed)

13b-q4 full 14.6 GB needed of 24 GB usable — headroom for context

3b-q4 full 2.8 GB needed of 24 GB usable — headroom for context

4b-q4 full 3.7 GB needed of 24 GB usable — headroom for context

8b-q4 full 6.1 GB needed of 24 GB usable — headroom for context

Cited community benches (1 rows)

→ 120 tok/s · Llama 3.1 8B Instruct Q4_K_M LocalScore median · source

Runs fully in memory (machine alternatives)

Nominal bandwidth: 1008.0 GB/s — see the effective decode window above

qwen3:0.6b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 0.6B · 0.6GB · needs ~1GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:1.7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1.7B · 1.4GB · needs ~1.8GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:4b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 4B · 2.6GB · needs ~3.2GB (4k ctx)

llama3.2:1b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1B · 1.3GB · needs ~1.4GB (4k ctx)

llama3.2:3b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 3B · 2.0GB · needs ~2.4GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:1b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1B · 1.0GB · needs ~1.1GB (4k ctx)

phi4:mini on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) mini 3.8B · 2.5GB · needs ~3GB (4k ctx)

moondream:2b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 2B · 1.7GB · needs ~3.7GB (4k ctx)

whisper:tiny on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) tiny · 0.1GB · needs ~2.1GB (4k ctx)

whisper on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) base · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

whisper:small on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) small · 0.9GB · needs ~2.9GB (4k ctx)

whisper:medium on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) medium · 3.1GB · needs ~5.1GB (4k ctx)

kokoro:82m on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 82M · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:4b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 4B · 3.3GB · needs ~3.8GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) distill 7B · 4.7GB · needs ~4.9GB (4k ctx)

mistral:7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 7B · 4.1GB · needs ~4.6GB (4k ctx)

llava:7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 7B · 4.7GB · needs ~6.7GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:8b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 8B · 5.2GB · needs ~5.8GB (4k ctx)

qwen2.5vl:7b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 7B · 5.6GB · needs ~5.8GB (4k ctx)

llama3.1:8b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 8B · 4.9GB · needs ~5.4GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:8b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) distill 8B · 4.9GB · needs ~5.4GB (4k ctx)

whisper:large-v3 on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) large-v3 · 6.2GB · needs ~8.2GB (4k ctx)

mistral-nemo:12b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 12B · 7.1GB · needs ~7.7GB (4k ctx)

sdxl on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) SDXL base · 6.9GB · needs ~8.9GB (4k ctx)

llava:13b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 13B · 8.0GB · needs ~11.1GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:12b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 12B · 8.1GB · needs ~9.6GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:14b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 14B · 9.3GB · needs ~9.9GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:14b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) distill 14B · 9.0GB · needs ~9.8GB (4k ctx)

phi4:14b on Tesla P100 (16GB, used) ($135) 14B · 9.1GB · needs ~9.9GB (4k ctx)

gpt-oss:20b on Tesla P40 (24GB, used) ($290) 20B MoE · 14GB · needs ~14.2GB (4k ctx)

devstral:24b on Tesla P40 (24GB, used) ($290) 24B · 14.6GB · needs ~15.2GB (4k ctx)

qwen3.8:27b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 27B · 16.5GB · needs ~18.5GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:27b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 27B · 17GB · needs ~18.9GB (4k ctx)

flux:schnell on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) schnell fp8 · 17GB · needs ~19GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:30b-a3b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 30B-A3B MoE · 18.6GB · needs ~19GB (4k ctx)

qwen3-coder:30b-a3b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 30B-A3B MoE · 18.6GB · needs ~19GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:32b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) 32B · 20GB · needs ~21GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:32b on Mac mini M4 (32GB) ($999) distill 32B · 20GB · needs ~21GB (4k ctx)

qwen2.5vl:32b on Mac mini M5 Pro (64GB) ($1669) 32B · 22GB · needs ~23GB (4k ctx)

Borderline — runs, but offloads

→ mixtral:8x7b 8x7B MoE — 26.5 GB vs 24 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

→ flux:dev dev fp8 — 25.0 of 24 GB usable — barely over; real with q8 KV cache (halves KV) or shorter context

Gotchas

⚠ Used-market price trap: AI demand pushed used 4090s at/above the $1599 MSRP — a used card can cost more than a new 5080

⚠ 12V-2x6 connector melt incidents; inspect/reseat the power cable on any used unit

⚠ Production reportedly ended; a 4090 Ti / TITAN Ada never shipped, so 24GB is the Ada GeForce ceiling

⚠ Triple-slot ~450W card — verify case and PSU clearance before buying

⚠ LocalScore shows '23GB' on some listings — it's the same 24GB card (display quirk), not a different SKU

Where to go next

RTX 5090 (32GB)

$5000 — 32GB GDDR7 / ~1.8 TB/s — the only meaningful same-form-factor step up for local LLM inference

B&H Photo ↗ · Amazon ↗ · Amazon ↗

RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)

$16499 — 48GB RTX Pro 6000 workstation card when 24GB is the binding constraint and used 4090 pricing is inflated anyway

NVIDIA ↗ · B&H Photo ↗

2026-09-18 · ← full hardware catalog · fit = working set vs VRAM · speeds are community-reported, cited in our knowledge base