RTX 4090 vs RTX 5080: Specs, VRAM & Price
Short answer: choose the RTX 4090 when 24 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 5080 when 16 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
The RTX 4090 has 24 GB of VRAM; the RTX 5080 has 16 GB.
You can rent both by the hour, no purchase required. RTX 4090 from $0.440/GPU/hr; RTX 5080 from $0.309/GPU/hr. The RTX 5080 is 30% cheaper at the entry rate.
RTX 4090
Good for inference and light fine-tuning workloads
RTX 5080
Good for inference and light fine-tuning workloads
Last updated: 2026-11-03 UTCRefreshes every 6 hours
Specs side by side
| Spec | RTX 4090 | RTX 5080 |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24 GB | 16 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 1,008 GB/s | 960 GB/s |
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | Blackwell |
| Compute capability | 8.9 | 12.0 |
| Precisions in hardware | FP32, FP16, BF16, FP8, INT4 | FP32, FP16, BF16, FP8, INT4 |
| Peak FP16/BF16 tensor TFLOPS | – | 225.1 TFLOPS |
| Peak FP8 tensor TFLOPS | – | 450.2 TFLOPS |
| Max board power (TDP) | 450W | 360W |
| Form factor | PCIe 4.0 x16 | – |
| Regions | 2 | 1 |
On-demand price
| Rate | RTX 4090 | RTX 5080 |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest per GPU/hr | $0.761/GPU/hr | $0.309/GPU/hr (cheapest overall) |
Which is better for AI: RTX 4090 or RTX 5080?
Choose the RTX 4090 when 24 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 5080 when 16 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
RTX 4090 vs RTX 5080: common questions
Is the RTX 4090 or the RTX 5080 better for AI?
Short answer: choose the RTX 4090 when 24 GB of VRAM is the gating requirement. Choose the RTX 5080 when 16 GB is enough for the workload and the lower hourly rate points that way.
Is the RTX 4090 or the RTX 5080 cheaper to rent?
On Aquanode's live marketplace the RTX 4090 starts at $0.440/GPU/hr (median $0.849/GPU/hr) and the RTX 5080 starts at $0.309/GPU/hr (median $0.589/GPU/hr). The RTX 5080 is the cheaper of the two at the entry rate, by 30%.
What is the difference between the RTX 4090 and the RTX 5080?
The RTX 4090 has 24 GB of VRAM against the RTX 5080's 16 GB; the RTX 4090 is an Ada Lovelace part and the RTX 5080 is Blackwell (compute capability 8.9 vs 12.0); both run BF16, FP8, INT4 workloads in hardware. On price, the RTX 4090 lists from $0.440/GPU/hr and the RTX 5080 from $0.309/GPU/hr.
How widely available are the RTX 4090 and the RTX 5080?
The RTX 4090 is listed in 2 regions and the RTX 5080 in 1 region right now.
How much does 1,000 GPU-hours cost on the RTX 4090 vs the RTX 5080?
At the lowest rates listed today, 1,000 GPU-hours costs $440 on the RTX 4090 and $309 on the RTX 5080, a difference of $131 for the same runtime. Rates are per GPU per hour and update hourly.
How much VRAM does the RTX 4090 have compared to the RTX 5080?
The RTX 4090 has 24 GB of VRAM; the RTX 5080 has 16 GB.
Does the RTX 4090 or the RTX 5080 support NVLink?
Neither the RTX 4090 nor the RTX 5080 has a 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 4090 page and RTX 5080 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 4090 VRAM calculator and the RTX 5080 VRAM calculator, or browse every model by generation in the GPU index.
More RTX 4090 comparisons
More RTX 5080 comparisons
Related reading: RTX 4090 pricing and specs, RTX 4090 for AI, RTX 5090 vs RTX 4090, and The best GPUs for AI, ranked.
Related on Aquanode: MI325X vs RTX 4090 specs, RTX 4000 Ada vs RTX 5080 specs, H100 NVL vs RTX 5080 specs, and RTX 5080 price in South Korea. Browse the full lists: Compare any two GPUs side by side and RTX 4090 price in every region.
