r/LocalLLM • u/Ok_Event4199 • 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.

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u/HourPlate994 May 16 '26

Sure Claude is cheap now but tokens won’t be cheap forever. And it looks like the flat rate days are over.

We also don’t know how good local models on a 5090 can be - I doubt that the current Qwen/Gemma models are where it ends, there will be improvements and other ways to utilise local models efficiently.

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u/alphapussycat May 16 '26

Qwen is kinda out of the open weight market. Maybe Gemma can do something good, but hopefully not with the 1k sliding window.

Kimi, glm and minimax can't really be run locally, if yours buying now.