RTX 3090 vs T4: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the RTX 3090 when 24 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the T4 when 16 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
The RTX 3090 has 24 GB of VRAM; the T4 has 16 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. RTX 3090 from $0.220/GPU/hr; T4 from $0.162/GPU/hr. The T4 is 26% cheaper at the entry rate.
RTX 3090
Good for inference and small-scale training workloads
T4
Good for inference workloads on older-generation hardware
Last updated: 2026-11-03 UTCRefreshes every 6 hours
Specs side by side
| Spec | RTX 3090 | T4 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24 GB | 16 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 936 GB/s | 320+ GB/s |
| Architecture | Ampere | Turing |
| Compute capability | 8.6 | 7.5 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, INT4 | FP32, FP16, INT4 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | 142 TFLOPS | 65 TFLOPS |
| NVLink / multi-GPU interconnect | NVLink, 2-way | – |
| Max board power (TDP) | 350W | 70W |
| Form factor | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe |
| Regions | 2 | 1 |
On-demand price
| Rate | RTX 3090 | T4 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.220/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) | $0.162/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: RTX 3090 or T4?
Choose the RTX 3090 when 24 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the T4 when 16 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
RTX 3090 vs T4: common questions
Is the RTX 3090 or the T4 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the RTX 3090 when 24 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the T4 when 16 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
Is the RTX 3090 or the T4 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the RTX 3090 starts at $0.220/GPU/hr (median $0.320/GPU/hr) and the T4 starts at $0.162/GPU/hr (median $0.162/GPU/hr). The T4 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 26%.
What is the difference between the RTX 3090 and the T4?
The RTX 3090 has 24 GB of VRAM against the T4's 16 GB; the RTX 3090 is an Ampere part and the T4 is Turing (compute capability 8.6 vs 7.5); only the RTX 3090 supports BF16 compute. On price, the RTX 3090 lists from $0.220/GPU/hr and the T4 from $0.162/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the RTX 3090 and the T4?
The RTX 3090 is listed in 2 regions and the T4 in 1 region right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the RTX 3090 vs the T4?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $220 on the RTX 3090 and $162 on the T4, a difference of $58 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the RTX 3090 have compared to the T4?
The RTX 3090 has 24 GB of VRAM; the T4 has 16 GB.
Does the RTX 3090 or the T4 support NVLink?
The RTX 3090 supports NVLink, 2-way; the T4 has no dedicated GPU-to-GPU interconnect.
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 T4 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 T4 VRAM calculator, see vendor-published throughput in the GPU benchmarks and specs table, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More RTX 3090 comparisons
More T4 comparisons
Related reading: RTX 3090 pricing and specs, and RTX 3090 for AI.
