NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti vs NVIDIA RTX 3080
Which graphics card is better for running local language models? Here is how the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti (11 GB) compares against the NVIDIA RTX 3080 (10 GB) in real memory headroom, supported model architectures, and generation speed.
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti
- Memory Bandwidth: 616 GB/s (GDDR6 352-bit)
- Fits fully in VRAM: 31 popular models
- Power Draw (TDP): 250W
- Largest recommended (Q4): 8B
NVIDIA RTX 3080
- Memory Bandwidth: 760 GB/s (GDDR6X 320-bit)
- Fits fully in VRAM: 29 popular models
- Power Draw (TDP): 320W
- Largest recommended (Q4): 8B
The AI Local Check Verdict: Which GPU should you buy for AI?
The Classic Headroom vs Speed Trade-off: The NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti has 1 GB more VRAM, allowing it to fit larger models that cannot run locally on the NVIDIA RTX 3080.
However, the NVIDIA RTX 3080 has a higher memory bandwidth (760 GB/s vs 616 GB/s). For models that comfortably fit in 10 GB VRAM, the NVIDIA RTX 3080 will generate tokens roughly 23.0% faster. Choose the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti if you prioritize model size flexibility, or the NVIDIA RTX 3080 if you prioritize token generation speed on models up to 10 GB.
Models that fit on NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti, but NOT on NVIDIA RTX 3080
These models run entirely in GPU VRAM on the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti, but require slow system RAM offload on the NVIDIA RTX 3080:
| Model | Size | Downloads | NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti | NVIDIA RTX 3080 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bartowski/Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct-GGUF | 32.76B | 596,743 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |
| bartowski/Nanbeige_Nanbeige4.3-33B-GGUF | 33.12B | 155,759 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |