Can a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 run Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL)?
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 has 24GB VRAM. Here's exactly whichquantization (FP16, FP8, GGUF)of Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) fits and how smoothly it runs.
Runs locally — recommended
This GPU has enough VRAM for Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL). Best pick: FP16 (Standard) (~6.5GB) with 16.5GB headroom.
6.5GB
smallest fit on this GPU
Run it locally
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (24GB) · ~$800 is a solid fit for Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL).
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Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) variants on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
| Variant | Precision | Size | Total VRAM needed | Headroom | Fits? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M GGUF | GGUF Q4_K_M | 2.8GB | 3.8GB | +20.2GB | ✓ Fits | Download ↗ |
| FP8 (Optimized) | FP8 | 3.3GB | 4.3GB | +19.7GB | ✓ Fits | Download ↗ |
| FP16 (Standard)REC | FP16 | 6.5GB | 7.5GB | +16.5GB | ✓ Fits | Download ↗ |
"Total VRAM needed" = variant size + 1.0GB estimated text-encoder/VAE overhead. Headroom = GPU VRAM (24GB) − total needed. Green ≥ 1.5GB headroom; Red ≤ −2GB (will OOM).
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 at a glance
VRAM
24GB
Est. price
$800
Best for
6.5GB Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) and lighter
Other models on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
FLUX.1 DevFLUX.1 SchnellStable Diffusion 1.5Stable Diffusion 3 (SD3)Hunyuan VideoWan 2.1 VideoPony DiffusionLlama 3.2 (1B)Llama 3.2 (3B)Llama 3 / 3.1 (8B)DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (7B)DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (14B)
Other GPUs for Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (12GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (16GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (16GB) (16GB)NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (4GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (8GB)Apple MacBook Pro (M3 Max) (36GB)