Gemma 4 31B on RTX 5090 workstation (1x 32 GB)
31.273B on 32 GB at 1,792 GB/s. Hardware details · Model details
CompatibilityFits
Fits
Yes
Calculated Uses 80-90% of usable memory. Works, with limited headroom.
Recommended quantization
MLX 4-bit
Calculated mlx
Memory required
26.0 GB
Calculated of 29.4 GB usable — 88%
Max practical context
8K
Calculated model supports 256K
Memory budget at 8K context
Model weights ⓘ
17.0 GB Calculated
KV cache ⓘ
7.5 GB Calculated
Runtime overhead ⓘ
1.5 GB Estimated
Total required
26.0 GB Calculated
Usable memory ⓘ
29.4 GB Assumption
Headroom
3.4 GB Calculated
Fits with limited headroom (88% of usable memory). A longer context will not leave room for much else.
Discrete GPU: 32 GB of VRAM, of which we assume 92% is usable after driver and context overhead.
PerformanceEstimated0/10
Decode (generation)
~62.1–89.4 t/s
Estimated calculated, not measured
Prefill (prompt)
~1970–4090 t/s
Estimated
TTFT at 8K
~2.1–4.3 s
Estimated time to first token
Power while generating
640 W
Measured 0.41 tokens/s per watt
These figures are estimated, not measured. Nobody has published a benchmark of Gemma 4 31B on this machine that we know of, so we calculate throughput from memory bandwidth and active parameter count. Estimates are always shown as a range. Expand the working below to see exactly how the number was produced.
How the estimate is calculated
- Decode: reading 31.3B active parameters at 4.50 bits/weight takes 12.40 ms at 1792 GB/s x 79% achieved efficiency.
- Prefill: 210 TFLOPS (FP16) x 4 for native FP4 tensor cores x 0.71 calibrated against measured prefill on this platform x 32% assumed model-FLOPs utilisation, divided by 2 x 31.3B parameters per token.
- Prefill throughput is highly engine-dependent. Flash attention, batch size and quantized KV all move this number substantially, and for sparse mixture-of-experts models it is the least reliable figure we produce.
- This is a calculated estimate, not a measurement. It assumes a single request, a short prompt, no speculative decoding and a warm model already resident in memory.
Estimator version estimator_v1. Stored with every estimated row so old estimates can be regenerated when the model improves.
This model at other quantizations on this machine
| Quantization | Weights | Total needed | Utilisation | Fit | Max context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
MLX 4-bitrecommended | 17.0 GB | 26.0 GB | 88% | Fits | 8K |
Q4_K_M | 18.2 GB | 27.2 GB | 93% | Borderline | 4K |
Q8_0 | 31.6 GB | 41.0 GB | 139% | Does not fit | 0 |
BF16 | 58.3 GB | 68.5 GB | 233% | Does not fit | 0 |
Cost of running Gemma 4 31B on this machineUnited States (federal) · C corporation · 8h/day
Monthly economic cost
$46
Calculated after tax
Codex/Claude Code
$100/mo
≈ $100/mo · local is $54 less
Net cash at purchase
$3,332
Calculated VAT not reclaimable
Total over 5 years
$2,731
Calculated after tax, after resale
Cost per USD/1M tokens
$4.74
Calculated 9.6M tokens/month
The $100 comparison uses the Codex Pro 5x / Claude Max 5x plans. A fixed planning conversion is used for USD. This compares monthly spend only: subscriptions have usage limits, local hardware has different capabilities and constraints, and taxes or regional pricing may change the charged amount. Prices checked 7 September 2026.
Monthly breakdown
| Depreciation 2,832 over 5 years, straight-line to a 500 residual | $47.21 |
| Electricity 32.4 kWh/month at 0.140/kWh | $4.53 |
| Cost of capital 4.0%/yr on 1,916 average capital employed | $6.39 |
| Monthly cost before tax | $58.13 |
| Electricity tax shield Running costs are deductible business expenses | −$0.95 |
| First-year expensing §179 (100.0%) | −$11.66 |
| Monthly economic cost after tax | $45.51 |
Three different numbers, deliberately
Cash cost
$3,332
Money that leaves the bank account on day one, net of reclaimable VAT.
Accounting depreciation
$47.21/month
$2,832 written down over 5 years to a $500 residual.
After-tax economic cost
$45.51/month
Depreciation plus running costs plus cost of capital, less the tax those deductions save. This is the figure to compare between machines.
Assumptions and sources (verified 2026-09-07)
VAT rate
0% Official spec
VAT recoverable
0% Official spec
Federal C-corporation estimate at the flat 21% rate. Pass-through entities should use the sole-proprietor estimate as a rougher proxy.
Effective deduction rate
21.00% Calculated
Headline marginal rate 21.00%.
Depreciation
5 years, straight-line Assumption
Residual value
$500 (15%) Assumption
Two GPU generations later, the card is worth a fraction of its list price.
Electricity
$0.140/kWh Assumption
Average power draw
184 W Calculated
Load 640 W for 20% of powered hours, idle 70 W for the rest — a machine that is on is not generating tokens the whole time.
Investment allowances
§179 100.0% Official spec
Worth $700 in total — first-year expensing that replaces later tax depreciation.
Cost of capital
$6.39/month Assumption
- VAT rate: No US federal VAT · verified 2026-09-07
- Marginal tax rate: IRS Publication 542 — Corporations · verified 2026-09-07
- VAT recoverable fraction: site assumption · verified 2026-09-07
- Useful life: IRS Publication 946 — How To Depreciate Property · verified 2026-09-07
- Electricity price: Site assumption · verified 2026-09-07
Assumes the machine generates tokens 20% of its 176 powered hours per month. Cost per token scales inversely with this number — halve the utilisation and the cost per token doubles.
Federal planning estimate only, not tax advice. State and local income tax, sales/use tax and incentives are excluded. It assumes 100% business use, a Section 179 election, enough business income to use it, and that the full annual limit remains available.
Efficiency metrics
Decode per $1,000 spent
22.7 t/s
Calculated purchase price only
Decode per $100/month
166.5 t/s
Calculated after-tax ownership cost
Tokens per joule
0.41
Calculated same as tokens/s per watt
USD per 1M output tokens
$4.74
Calculated at 20% utilisation
Local versus hosted APIs
| Hosted model | USD/1M output | Break-even | API at your volume | Verdict | Comparison type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen3.8 Flash Alibaba Cloud | $0.42 | 29.6M/mo | $15 | API cheaper | Different model |
| DeepSeek-V4 Flash DeepSeek | $0.66 | 18.8M/mo | $23 | API cheaper | Different model |
| DeepSeek-V4 Pro DeepSeek | $1.98 | 6.3M/mo | $70 | Local cheaper | Different model |
| DeepSeek V4 Pro (Together) Together AI | $4.40 | 2.1M/mo | $204 | Local cheaper | Different model |
| GLM-5.3 Z.ai | $4.40 | 2.9M/mo | $150 | Local cheaper | Different model |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 Anthropic | $5.00 | 3.5M/mo | $125 | Local cheaper | Different model |
Different-model comparison: the hosted model is not the model you would run locally. Treat this as a workload-quality trade-off, not a direct economic equivalence — the frontier model may complete a task in fewer tokens, or complete tasks the local model cannot. Break-even is the monthly output volume at which API spend equals the $46/month economic cost of owning this machine, assuming 8 input tokens per output token. Hosted prices are published in USD. This table is the canonical US default.
Gemma 4 31B on other hardware
| Hardware | Decode | Price | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quad RTX 5090 workstation (4x 32 GB) | ~68.1–98 t/s | €13.999 | Comfortable |
| Dual RTX 5090 workstation (2x 32 GB) | ~45.2–65.1 t/s | €6.499 | Comfortable |
| Dual used RTX 4090 workstation (48 GB) | ~44–63.4 t/s | €4.099 | Comfortable |
| RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell workstation (96 GB) | ~31.8–45.8 t/s | €11.499 | Comfortable |
| RTX PRO 6000 Max-Q workstation (96 GB, 300 W) | ~31.8–45.8 t/s | €11.999 | Comfortable |
| Radeon AI PRO R9700 workstation (32 GB) | ~27.7–39.9 t/s | €2.799 | Fits |
Nearest alternatives to the RTX 5090 workstation (1x 32 GB)
Gemma 4 31B on Dual RTX 5090 workstation (2x 32 GB)64 GBGemma 4 31B on Quad RTX 5090 workstation (4x 32 GB)128 GBGemma 4 31B on Dual used RTX 4090 workstation (48 GB)48 GBGemma 4 31B on Used RTX 4090 workstation (24 GB)24 GBGemma 4 31B on Radeon AI PRO R9700 workstation (32 GB)32 GB
Compare RTX 5090 workstation (1x 32 GB) against Dual RTX 5090 workstation (2x 32 GB) →
Compare RTX 5090 workstation (1x 32 GB) against Dual RTX 5090 workstation (2x 32 GB) →
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