5090 vs Dual 5060 16GB: The Local Inference VRAM Economics Debate Explodes

r/LocalLLaMA·medium signal

A r/LocalLLaMA post asking why everyone isn't running dual RTX 5060 16GB cards ($1,100 for 32GB total) instead of a single RTX 5090 generated 104 comments on just 75 upvotes (1.39 comment-to-score ratio — indicating intense practitioner debate). The discussion reveals the real-world tradeoffs: NVLink is dead on consumer cards, PCIe bus bandwidth becomes the bottleneck for multi-GPU inference, and single-card VRAM wins for models that fit. The thread is a snapshot of how local inference builders are actually making hardware purchasing decisions in 2026.