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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 — Specs & Performance Compared

Verdict: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 on all 5 shared benchmarks on file, by 22% to 107%, including 102% in 3DMark Time Spy (37,979 vs 18,824). On qwen3:32b, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 generates 650.0 tokens/s (per Spheron Blog) against 35.1 for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (per Hardware Corner), best community run on file for each.

Side-by-side GPU comparison of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. Released 2020 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090), 2022 (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090). MSRP range: $1,499 · $1,599. Specs, synthetic benchmarks, AI inference tok/s, and Amazon availability below; each column header links to that part's benchmark page.

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*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Price and availability subject to change.

Where to buy

A listing for each part; the current price and stock are on the retailer's page.

Specs side-by-side

SpecNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
vram gb 2424
vram type GDDR6XGDDR6X
tdp w 350450
cuda cores 1049616384

Synthetic benchmarks

Each row says whether a higher or a lower number is better (ranks and times are lower-is-better). Scores come from HWBOT, esports.hwbot.org, Overclock3D, 3DMark, HWCooling.net, The FPS Review, [H]ard|Forum RTX 4090 Time Spy Thread, TechPowerUp, Notebookcheck, Puget Systems, PassMark and PCBench; each row links its sources, and where they differ the cell shows their median. Empty cells mean we don't yet have that benchmark on file for the SKU.

BenchmarkNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
3DMark Port Royal (higher is better)
Source: HWBOT, esports.hwbot.org, Overclock3D, 3DMark, HWCooling.net		 15,039 points25,820 points
3DMark Speed Way (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark		 5,075 points10,527 points
3DMark Steel Nomad (higher is better)
Source: The FPS Review, 3DMark		 5,229 points27,805 points
3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12 Graphics Score) (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark		 5,112 points—
3DMark Steel Nomad Light (higher is better)
Source: The FPS Review		 —11,287 points
3DMark Time Spy (higher is better)
Source: [H]ard|Forum RTX 4090 Time Spy Thread, 3DMark		 18,824 points37,979 points
3DMark Time Spy Extreme (higher is better)
Source: TechPowerUp, The FPS Review, Notebookcheck		 9,800 points29,321 pts
3DMark Time Spy Extreme (Graphics) (higher is better)
Source: TechPowerUp		 —19,000 pts
3DMark Time Spy GPU (higher is better)
Source: TechPowerUp		 —35,200 pts
Deep Learning Benchmark (ResNet-50) (higher is better)
Source: Puget Systems		 —128,000 images/sec
PassMark G2D Mark (higher is better)
Source: PassMark		 1,069 pts1,302 pts
PassMark G3D Mark (higher is better)
Source: PassMark, PCBench		 26,548 pts38,066 pts

AI inference (tokens/sec)

Top community-reported tokens-per-second results for popular LLMs whose weights fit the card's memory, each linked to its source. See the per-SKU benchmark page for the full set including quantization and prompt length.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090

All NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 AI benchmarks →

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

All NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 AI benchmarks →

Quick answers

Which is faster, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 or the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090?

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 on all 5 shared benchmarks on file, by 22% to 107%, including 102% in 3DMark Time Spy (37,979 vs 18,824).

Which is better for running local LLMs?

On qwen3:32b, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 generates 650.0 tokens/s (per Spheron Blog) against 35.1 for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (per Hardware Corner), best community run on file for each.

What did the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 cost at launch?

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 launched at a $1,499 MSRP and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 at $1,599. Street prices drift from launch pricing; the Where to buy section links current listings.

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