rtx-3090

6 articles · newest first

Hardware

a 5-year-old GPU still beats nvidia's newest budget card for local AI — here's the catch

24GB of old VRAM versus 16GB of new, low-power silicon — I ran the real math on what each one costs, up front and over a year.

Ravi Malhotra · Aug 4 · 6 min

AI

I priced out every way to run a 70B AI model at home — the cheapest one isn't what you'd guess

Four real paths to running a 70B-parameter model on your own hardware or by the hour — priced out with actual 2026 numbers.

Lena Fischer · Aug 4 · 8 min

Hardware

nvidia's about to hike GPU prices again — here's the actual buy-or-wait math for local AI

A third price hike in one year is reportedly coming for the RTX 50 series — and if you're buying VRAM for local AI, not frame rates, the calculation isn't the same as 'wait for a sale.'

Ravi Malhotra · Aug 4 · 7 min

AI

buying a used RTX 3090 for local AI? the 5-minute check that saves you from a $1,000 mistake

A used 3090 is still the best VRAM-per-dollar card for local AI — but many were mining cards, and the memory runs hot. Here's exactly what to check before you hand over the cash.

Ravi Malhotra · Jul 28 · 9 min

AI

the best GPU for running Qwen3-32B locally isn't the fastest one — it's the cheapest with 24GB

Qwen3-32B at Q4 needs about 20GB of VRAM, which rules out every 16GB card and makes this a simple question: what's the cheapest 24GB GPU that runs it well? The answer is used.

Ravi Malhotra · Jul 28 · 9 min

AI

the honest answer to 'what GPU runs Llama 70B': not the one you were about to buy

Llama 70B needs about 40GB of VRAM to run well — and almost no single consumer card has it. Here's what actually works, visualized, with the measured speeds and real costs for each path.

Ravi Malhotra · Jul 23 · 10 min