NVIDIA RTX 3080 vs NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB
Which graphics card is better for running local language models? Here is how the NVIDIA RTX 3080 (10 GB) compares against the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB (12 GB) in real memory headroom, supported model architectures, and generation speed.
NVIDIA RTX 3080
- Memory Bandwidth: 760 GB/s (GDDR6X 320-bit)
- Fits fully in VRAM: 30 popular models
- Power Draw (TDP): 320W
- Largest recommended (Q4): 8B
NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB
- Memory Bandwidth: 360 GB/s (GDDR6 192-bit)
- Fits fully in VRAM: 34 popular models
- Power Draw (TDP): 170W
- Largest recommended (Q4): 14B
The AI Local Check Verdict: Which GPU should you buy for AI?
The Classic Headroom vs Speed Trade-off: The NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB offers 2 GB more VRAM, enabling larger models to run entirely on the GPU.
Conversely, the NVIDIA RTX 3080 features higher memory bandwidth (760 GB/s vs 360 GB/s). For models that fit within 10 GB, the NVIDIA RTX 3080 will output tokens faster. Choose the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB if you want to unlock larger models, or the NVIDIA RTX 3080 if you want maximum speed on smaller models.
Models that fit on NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB, but NOT on NVIDIA RTX 3080
These models run entirely in GPU VRAM on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB, but require slow system RAM offload on the NVIDIA RTX 3080:
| Model | Size | Downloads | NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GB | NVIDIA RTX 3080 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bartowski/Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct-GGUF | 32.76B | 922,910 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |
| unsloth/gpt-oss-20b-GGUF | 20.91B | 524,450 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |
| unsloth/Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B-GGUF | 34.66B | 294,494 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |
| MaziyarPanahi/Qwen3-30B-A3B-GGUF | 30.53B | 170,702 | Fits in VRAM | Offload (Slow) |