RTX 3090 vs RTX A5000: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the RTX A5000 when you want the lower hourly rate and the specs are otherwise a wash. Choose the RTX 3090 when RTX 3090 pricing or availability works better where you're deploying.
Both the RTX 3090 and the RTX A5000 ship with 24 GB of VRAM.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. RTX 3090 from $0.198/GPU/hr across 3 providers; RTX A5000 from $0.176/GPU/hr across 2 providers. The RTX A5000 is 11% cheaper at the entry rate.
RTX 3090
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
RTX A5000
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
Last updated: 2026-10-07 22:32:34 UTCRefreshes hourly
Specs side by side
| Spec | RTX 3090 | RTX A5000 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24 GB | 24 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 936 GB/s | 768 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| Compute capability | 8.6 | 8.6 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | 142 TFLOPS | – |
| NVLink / multi-GPU interconnect | NVLink, 2-way | NVLink, 112.5 GB/s bidirectional |
| Max board power (TDP) | 350W | 230W |
| Form factor | PCIe 4.0 x16 | – |
| Providers | 3 | 2 |
| Regions | 3 | 2 |
On-demand price
| Rate | RTX 3090 | RTX A5000 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.550/GPU/hr | $0.297/GPU/hr |
Which is better for AI: RTX 3090 or RTX A5000?
Choose the RTX A5000 when you want the lower hourly rate and the specs are otherwise a wash. Choose the RTX 3090 when RTX 3090 pricing or availability works better where you're deploying.
RTX 3090 vs RTX A5000: common questions
Is the RTX 3090 or the RTX A5000 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the RTX A5000 when you want the lower hourly rate and the specs are otherwise a wash. Choose the RTX 3090 when RTX 3090 pricing or availability works better where you're deploying.
Is the RTX 3090 or the RTX A5000 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the RTX 3090 starts at $0.198/GPU/hr (median $0.297/GPU/hr across 3 providers) and the RTX A5000 starts at $0.176/GPU/hr (median $0.297/GPU/hr across 2 providers). The RTX A5000 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 11%.
What is the difference between the RTX 3090 and the RTX A5000?
Both cards report 24 GB of VRAM; both are Ampere parts; both run BF16, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the RTX 3090 lists from $0.198/GPU/hr and the RTX A5000 from $0.176/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the RTX 3090 and the RTX A5000?
3 providers list the RTX 3090 and 2 list the RTX A5000, across 3 and 2 regions respectively. 2 providers currently list both models.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the RTX 3090 vs the RTX A5000?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $198 on the RTX 3090 and $176 on the RTX A5000, a difference of $22 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the RTX 3090 have compared to the RTX A5000?
Both the RTX 3090 and the RTX A5000 ship with 24 GB of VRAM.
Does the RTX 3090 or the RTX A5000 support NVLink?
Yes, both support a multi-GPU interconnect: the RTX 3090 has NVLink, 2-way and the RTX A5000 has NVLink, 112.5 GB/s bidirectional.
How this comparison is calculated
Every price is normalized to a per-GPU hourly rate using the same pipeline as every other pricing surface on Aquanode, and only the cheapest qualifying offer per provider is shown. A dash means that provider does not currently list that GPU.
Architecture, compute capability and supported precisions come from each vendor's published datasheet for that generation, not from the marketplace feed. This page regenerates at most once per hour.
Memory bandwidth, tensor TFLOPS, NVLink/interconnect and max board power are the same verified-from-datasheet figures shown on each model's own RTX 3090 page and RTX A5000 page, which link the primary vendor source for that model. A dash here means Aquanode hasn't verified that figure from a primary source yet, never a guess.
Go further
Check what fits in each card's memory with the RTX 3090 VRAM calculator and the RTX A5000 VRAM calculator, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More RTX 3090 comparisons
More RTX A5000 comparisons
Related reading: RTX 3090 pricing and specs, The NVIDIA Inception program, explained, Google Colab alternatives for dedicated GPU access, Free GPU credits for students and researchers, and RunPod volume disk vs. network volume, compared.
