A six-week test of eight popular consumer GPUs for local AI model inference found that the GIGABYTE RX 9070 XT Gaming OC offers the best value-to-VRAM ratio, while the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 OC is the only consumer card that handles 70B-class throughput with zero CPU offload. For budget users, the ASRock Arc B580 Challenger runs 8B-class models and stays under 200W. The guide matches GPUs by VRAM tier, model size, and software stack including Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp, and covers idle-power use for 24/7 operation. The tested cards include the GIGABYTE RX 9070 XT Gaming OC 16G with 16GB GDDR6, RDNA 4, PCIe 5.0, and 800W PSU; the ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 OC 32GB with 32GB GDDR7, Blackwell, DLSS 4, and 575W TDP; the ASRock Arc B580 Challenger 12GB OC with 12GB GDDR6, Xe2-HPG, XMX engines, and PCIe 4.0; the ASUS Dual RTX 5060 Ti 16GB OC with 16GB GDDR7, Blackwell, 767 AI TOPS, and 2.5-slot; the MS