NVIDIA · Data Center
NVIDIA Tesla P40
The NVIDIA Tesla P40 is the ultimate budget AI card — 24GB of VRAM for around on the used market. Based on the older Pascal architecture (2016), it lacks modern tensor cores and FP16 acceleration, making inference significantly slower than newer cards. But for hobbyists who want to experiment with 32B models at Q4 quantization without spending thousands, nothing else comes close on price. Requires a second GPU for display output and runs with a loud blower cooler.
Specifications
AI Capabilities
The professional standard. Handles most models with smart quantization.
Can run (Q4 quantized)
Recommended system RAM for AI: 48GB+ (2x GPU VRAM for model overflow)
Performance Estimates
Estimated tokens/sec for LLM inference based on 346 GB/s memory bandwidth — not hardware benchmarks. Methodology · What is Q4/Q8?
Pros
- +24GB VRAM for $300 used — cheapest way to get 24GB
- +Runs 32B models at Q4
- +Great for inference experimentation
Cons
- -No display output — needs a second GPU for video
- -Old Pascal architecture — no FP16 tensor cores
- -Very slow by modern standards
- -Loud blower cooler