RTX 5090 32GB vs RTX 6000 Ada 48GB for Local LLMs

The RTX 5090 32GB has about 87% more memory bandwidth (1,792 vs 960 GB/s). Batch-1 decode tracks bandwidth closely, so a model that fits both cards should decode roughly 87% faster on the RTX 5090 32GB. The RTX 6000 Ada 48GB fits more of the catalog at Q4/8K — 39 vs 38 of 61 models (48 vs 32 GB VRAM). Largest model that fits the RTX 6000 Ada 48GB but not the RTX 5090 32GB: Qwen3-Coder-Next (79.7B). MSRP is $1,999 for the RTX 5090 32GB vs $6,800 for the RTX 6000 Ada 48GB. MSRP is a launch list price, not live retail — Amazon prices move; click through for the current price. In the Q4/8K head-to-head below (47 shared models), the RTX 5090 32GB posts the higher tok/s in 39 rows vs 8. Methodology.

Spec comparison

	RTX 5090 32GB	RTX 6000 Ada 48GB
Vendor	NVIDIA	NVIDIA
VRAM	32 GB	48 GB
Memory type	GDDR7	GDDR6
Memory bandwidth	1,792 GB/s	960 GB/s
TDP	575 W	300 W
MSRP (list)	$1,999	$6,800
Buy	Search Amazon (affiliate)	Search Amazon (affiliate)

MSRP is the launch list price, not live retail. Buy links are Amazon affiliate links — the price after you click is the live price.

Q4 / 8K head-to-head — top 15 of 47 shared models

Model	Params (B)	RTX 5090 32GB tok/s	RTX 5090 32GB fits	RTX 6000 Ada 48GB tok/s	RTX 6000 Ada 48GB fits	Winner
Qwen3-0.6B	0.8	1425.5 est.	Yes	763.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
gemma-3-1b-it	1.0	1140.4 est.	Yes	610.9 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct	1.2	950.3 est.	Yes	509.1 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct	81.3	518.3 est.	No	624.8 est.	No	RTX 6000 Ada 48GB
Qwen3-1.7B	2.0	570.2 est.	Yes	305.5 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-Coder-Next	79.7	538.6 est.	No	203.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B	30.5	380.1 est.	Yes	203.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct	30.5	380.1 est.	Yes	203.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
GLM-4.7-Flash	31.2	380.1 est.	Yes	203.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507	30.5	380.1 est.	Yes	203.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct	3.2	356.4 est.	Yes	190.9 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Phi-4-mini-instruct	3.8	300.1 est.	Yes	160.8 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Phi-4-mini-reasoning	3.8	300.1 est.	Yes	160.8 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
gemma-3-4b-it	4.3	292.4 est.	Yes	156.6 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB
Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507	4.0	285.1 est.	Yes	152.7 est.	Yes	RTX 5090 32GB

est. = bandwidth-based estimate; measured = curated real benchmark that overrides the estimate. Fits = weights + KV(8K) + 1 GB overhead ≤ 95% of VRAM.

Fit coverage at Q4 / 8K

	RTX 5090 32GB	RTX 6000 Ada 48GB
Catalog models that fit	38 of 61	39 of 61
Largest exclusive fit	—	Qwen3-Coder-Next (79.7B)

RTX 5090 32GB details → · RTX 6000 Ada 48GB details →