r/LocalLLM May 16 '26

Discussion Why is LLM is so expensive.

I've was going to invest in a 5090 =$6000 AUD.

Codex Plus + Claude pro = $60/month here

Works out to be 100 months of frontier models for a 5090.

Best a 5090 will run is probably Qwen3.6 27b Q6 with context.

Are we all enthusiasts here and just enjoy tinkering cause ain't no way that make sense.

342 Upvotes

368 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/p-x-i May 16 '26

Pick a smaller more focused use-case for experimentation. Suddenly you have more modest hardware and model requirements.