AI
Should you rent a cloud GPU or buy one for AI? Rent, unless you'll pass about 2,000 hours
Divide the card's price by the hourly rental rate. On Nov 3, 2026 a $1,000 RTX 3090 paid for itself after about 2,000 hours against Runpod ($0.50 an hour) and about 6,200 hours against a typical Vast.ai rental ($0.16). Add electricity and the gap widens. Here's the math, by GPU and by hours a day.
Aliteq Team · · 7 min