NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB vs NVIDIA Tesla P40

For running models locally, priced in Germany. At 32k context the first runs 10 models fully in memory, the second 26.

In short

The NVIDIA Tesla P40 has more memory for models: 24 GB against 12 GB. At 32k context the NVIDIA Tesla P40 runs 26 of the models we track fully in memory and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 10; only the NVIDIA Tesla P40 holds Qwen 3.8 27B. On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is about 1.2× as fast as the NVIDIA Tesla P40 (estimated, median across models). In Germany the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB costs 309 € at Amazon and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 369 € at eBay (used): the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is 60 € cheaper.

Updated . Speeds are estimates; how they are worked out.

Specifications

SpecNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GBNVIDIA Tesla P40
GPUGeForce RTX 3060 12GBTesla P40
Memory12 GB GDDR624 GB GDDR5
Memory bus192-bit384-bit
Memory bandwidth360 GB/s346 GB/s
FP16 compute25.6 TFLOPS11.8 TFLOPS
SoftwareCUDACUDA
Board power170 W250 W
PCIe generationGen 4Gen 3
PCIe lanesx16x16

What each runs

Estimated decode speed with the most precise quant that fits each one est.

ModelNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GBNVIDIA Tesla P40
Qwen 3.8 27Boffload10tok/sUD-Q5_K_M
Qwen 3.6 27Boffload10tok/sQ5_K_M
Gemma 4 31Boffload10tok/sQ4_K_M
Qwen 3.6 35B-A3Boffload50tok/sUD-Q4_K_M
Qwen 3.5 27Boffload10tok/sQ5_K_M
Gemma 4 26B-A4Boffload29tok/sUD-Q6_K
Qwen 3.5 35B-A3Boffload50tok/sQ4_K_M
GLM 4.7 Flashoffload24tok/sQ5_K_M
Devstral Small 2 24Boffload10tok/sQ5_K_M
gpt-oss 20Boffload40tok/sMXFP4
Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3Boffload26tok/sQ4_K_M
Gemma 4 12B21tok/sQ6_K16tok/sQ8_0
Qwen 3.5 9B21tok/sQ8_020tok/sQ8_0
Gemma 3 27Boffload10tok/sQ5_K_M
Mistral Small 3.2 24Boffload10tok/sQ5_K_M
Ministral 3 14Boffload11tok/sQ8_0
Qwen3 14Boffload10tok/sQ8_0
DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B21tok/sQ5_K_M16tok/sQ8_0
Qwen3 8B21tok/sQ5_K_M16tok/sQ8_0
Phi-4 14Boffload10tok/sQ8_0
Qwen 3.5 4B40tok/sQ8_038tok/sQ8_0
Ministral 3 8B21tok/sQ5_K_M16tok/sQ8_0
Granite 4.2 8B21tok/sQ4_K_M15tok/sQ8_0
Gemma 4 E4B24tok/sQ8_023tok/sQ8_0
LFM2.5 8B-A1B50tok/sQ8_048tok/sQ8_0
Llama 3.1 8B21tok/sQ6_K20tok/sQ6_K
Qwen 3.5 122B-A10Bwon't runoffload
Qwen3 Coder Nextwon't runoffload
Mistral Small 4 119Bwon't runoffload
GLM 4.5 Airwon't runoffload
Qwen3 Next 80B-A3Bwon't runoffload
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3Boffloadoffload
Kimi Linear 48B-A3Boffloadoffload
Qwen3 32Boffloadoffload
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32Boffloadoffload
DeepSeek V4 Flashwon't runwon't run
GLM 5.3 Flashwon't runwon't run
Qwen 3.8 Flash Nextwon't runwon't run
MiniMax M2.7won't runwon't run
Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12Bwon't runwon't run
gpt-oss 120Bwon't runwon't run
Llama 3.3 70Bwon't runwon't run

Questions

Which is better for local AI, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
Choose the NVIDIA Tesla P40 to run bigger models. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB for speed. Choose the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB to spend less.
Which can run bigger models, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
At 32k context the NVIDIA Tesla P40 runs 26 of the models we track fully in memory and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 10; only the NVIDIA Tesla P40 holds Qwen 3.8 27B.
Which is faster for local AI, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
On the models both run fully in memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is about 1.2× as fast as the NVIDIA Tesla P40 (estimated, median across models).
What is the price difference between the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB and the NVIDIA Tesla P40?
In Germany the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB costs 309 € at Amazon and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 369 € at eBay (used): the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB is 60 € cheaper.

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