Best GPU for Local AI Coding

作者： Jakub Rusinowski · 最后更新： 2026年7月21日

Ranked for coding and software engineering: Writing, refactoring and debugging code in an editor or terminal, with the model reading real project files.

The picks

	GPU	VRAM	MSRP	Models that fit	Best model it runs	Est. speed
Best overall	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX	24 GB	$999	87	Qwen 3.7 35B-A3B	~164.8 tok/s
Best value	Intel Arc B580	12 GB	$249	61	Qwen 3 14B	~33 tok/s
Budget pick	Intel Arc B570	10 GB	$219	60	Qwen3-Coder 8B	~47.2 tok/s
Most memory	NVIDIA DGX Spark	128 GB	$4,699	98	Devstral-2 123B	~2.7 tok/s

Full ranking for coding and software engineering

GPU	Score	VRAM	MSRP	Models fit	Est. speed	Tok/s per watt	Cost per model
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX	80.8	24 GB	$999	87	~164.8	0.46	$11
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090	79.3	24 GB	$1,499	87	~162.2	0.46	$17
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090	78.6	24 GB	$1,599	87	~169.9	0.38	$18
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090	77.7	32 GB	$1,999	87	~233	0.41	$23
NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation	77.1	48 GB	$6,799	89	~164.8	0.55	$76
NVIDIA L40S	76.7	48 GB	$7,499	89	~154.1	0.44	$84
Intel Arc B580	67.4	12 GB	$249	61	~33	0.17	$4
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070	62.5	12 GB	$549	61	~46.9	0.19	$9
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT	61.9	20 GB	$899	78	~28.6	0.09	$12
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070	59.1	12 GB	$599	61	~36.2	0.18	$10
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super	58.8	12 GB	$599	61	~36.2	0.16	$10
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)	57.2	12 GB	$329	61	~26.4	0.16	$5

How these numbers are calculated

• GPUs are scored on four axes: capability (45%), speed (30%), value (20%) and efficiency (5%), each normalised across the whole ranking.
• Capability means the intrinsic strength of the best model the card can hold — not how many models fit, and not how fast it streams a small one.
• Speed is capped at 40 tok/s: past that, more throughput does not change how the model feels to use.
• Apple Silicon is excluded from this ranking. Those entries price a whole computer and rate a chip's package power, so on price-per-capability and performance-per-watt they would beat every add-in card by construction. Apple hardware is covered on the macOS platform page instead.
• Coding score carries 60% of the capability weight and reasoning the remaining 35%, because most real editor work is "understand this repo, then write correct code". Context is weighted heavily: below 16K tokens a model cannot hold a meaningful slice of a codebase, and 128K is treated as fully served. Latency matters (0.7) — a coding assistant slower than you type stops being used.

FAQ

What is the best GPU for coding and software engineering?

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX — 24 GB of VRAM runs 87 qualifying models, the strongest being Qwen 3.7.

What is the cheapest GPU that works for coding and software engineering?

The Intel Arc B570 at $219, which runs 60 qualifying models.

How much VRAM do I need for coding and software engineering?

8 GB is the entry point at which a model for this workload will run at all. More memory buys a stronger model, not just a faster one.

What These GPUs Run

• Best models for the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• Best models for the Intel Arc B580
• Best models for the Intel Arc B570
• Best models for the NVIDIA DGX Spark

GPU Reviews

• AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX review
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 review
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 review
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 review

Best GPU for Other Workloads

• Best GPU for general assistant
• Best GPU for reasoning
• Best GPU for rag
• Best GPU for agents

Next Steps

• Best models for coding
• Build a PC for local AI
• Compare local vs cloud cost

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