Local LLM and ML platform with RTX 5090 GPU

I built a local AI workstation around an RTX 5090 (32 GB) for an uninterrupted, offline coding workflow.

OS: Debian 12 with a pinned NVIDIA .run driver (frozen for kernel stability).
LLMs: each in its own Python venv to keep the global stack clean.
Tools in a default “example-venv”: PyTorch, SciPy, NumPy, pandas, Matplotlib, scikit-learn.

Short demo + full setup notes:
https://localprompt.ai/demo.mp4
https://localprompt.ai
System Specifications – LocalPrompt.ai

Current favorite: DeepSeek-Coder-V2-Lite-Instruct (GGUF, Q8_0) for offline code help; I run it locally and use the venv to execute/validate.

I’d love feedback on two points:

  1. With a 32 GB GPU, which models are you finding best in practice as a coding assistant?
  2. For longer tasks, do you prefer a slightly smaller model with bigger context, or a stronger model accepting the risk of some forgetting of chat history?
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If you’re looking for a coding-specialized model that can be quantized to 32 GB or less (preferably 16 GB or less when considering memory for context), Qwen Coder series would be a safe bet. Devstral and NextCoder also seems promising.

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Thanks a lot, I’ll try it somewhere next week and post my findings here.

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How’s your experience been with driver support for native fan control with your Inno3D 5090?

I was looking at some similar RTX 5090 builds for local ai on llamabuilds.ai and it looked like most builds there prefer the reference nVidia RTX 5090 or MSI models?

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How did you resolve the issue with sm_120 support? I tried and I couldn’t get it to work. Otherwise you’re not going to be able to infer anything with it.

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sm_120 is only supported in the torch nightly builds. I’m running on dual RTX 5070’s.
Make sure you are running cuda 13.0.1 ( CUDA 13.0 Update 1 >=580 )
and install torch nightly build

download. pytorch. org /whl/nightly/cu130

pip show torch
Name: torch
Version: 2.10.0.dev20250910+cu130

nvidia-smi.exe
±-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 581.29 Driver Version: 581.29 CUDA Version: 13.0 |
|=============+=================+===============|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 WDDM | 00000000:01:00.0 On | N/A |
| 0% 37C P1 34W / 250W | 11198MiB / 12227MiB | 10% Default |
±-----------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+
| 1 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 WDDM | 00000000:14:00.0 Off | N/A |
| 0% 46C P1 24W / 250W | 11065MiB / 12227MiB | 10% Default |

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