Side-by-side simulation · recommended settings
NVIDIA A40 48GB vs 2× RTX 3090 Local LLM Comparison
If you want a single 48GB VRAM and a server environment, you could look at the A40, and if you value component accessibility and total bandwidth, you could look at the two 3090s.
Choose devices and a model
Expand comparison settings
Same 117output tokens. Only evidence-qualified acceleration is selected automatically; runtime formats are shown on each device.
Left
ReadyNVIDIA A40 48GB
Press Start above to generate the same answer on both devices.
Right
Ready2× RTX 3090 48GB (NVLink)
Press Start above to generate the same answer on both devices.
With these settings, 2× RTX 3090 48GB (NVLink) finishes the full answer About 6.7× faster.
Compare from input processing to completion of 117 token response.
Which one fits my needs?
Answer completion
2× RTX 3090 48GB (NVLink)
At the estimate midpoint, it finishes the same answer about 6.7× faster.
Prompt processing
2× RTX 3090 48GB (NVLink)
The estimated input-processing midpoint is higher at 2,128 tok/s.
Image and video generation
Check the media model
LLM speed does not tell you media-generation performance. Choose the image or video model and resolution separately.
Runtime
Settings for your hardware
llama.cpp CUDA · Q4_K_M / Strata 0.1.40 · IQ3_S · MTP-4 · pipeline-windows 2 · SSD PLE. When runtime paths differ, the speed gap also includes software and model-format differences.
Estimated power draw
NVIDIA A40 48GB
Estimated LLM power draw is lower at about 400 W. Noise and physical size need a separate check.
Local pricing
NVIDIA A40 48GB is a single GPU unit, while 2× RTX 3090 48GB (with NVLink) consists of two GPUs at a single price. When comparing, the cost of the GPU unit must include the base unit cost.
Before choosing hardware
| Measure | NVIDIA A40 48GB | 2× RTX 3090 48GB (NVLink) |
|---|---|---|
| Available fast memory | 46GB | 45GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 696GB/s | 1872GB/s |
| Estimated total time | 19 s | 2.9 s |
| Estimated sustained LLM load | about 400W | about 780W |
| Korean price range (KRW) | 630–630 × KRW 10,000 | 478–478 × KRW 10,000 |
Estimated ranges for one user. Multi-GPU and multi-device results depend on the runtime and interconnect.