Gaming GPU

The RTX 5080 is not the exciting card, and for local AI it is the one most buyers should get. What 16GB actually runs, where the ceiling is, and when to buy cheaper or dearer instead.

For local AI the used market offers something new cards at the same price cannot: more VRAM. When that trade is worth taking, what you are actually risking, and how to test a card before the return window closes.

The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is the cheapest route to genuinely capable local AI - and the 8GB version sharing its name is a real purchasing hazard. What it runs, how much slower it is, and who should buy it.

Gaming benchmarks do not predict local AI performance - VRAM does. The cards worth buying at each tier, the sizing maths nobody explains, and the six mistakes that waste money.

The answer is a short calculation, not a number from someone else s setup. Weights plus KV cache plus overhead - learn it once and you can size any model against any card in thirty seconds.