About RigPerDollar

RigPerDollar answers two questions: will this open-weight model fit on this graphics card or system, and what is the cheapest machine that runs it. It pairs GPU and system specs with model file sizes and dated street prices, so a reader can compare estimated tokens per second per dollar.

The site is run by Nick Greenwood. It is a static site. The numbers on the pages come from the JSON files in the repository: GPU and system specs, model sizes, prices, and fully priced builds. A page does not invent a figure, and nothing on the site is a sponsored ranking.

A model counts as fitting when its Q4 file plus a published headroom fits in memory and, where the architecture is known, at least 4K tokens of context fit with an 8-bit KV cache. The rule, the speed formula, and the llama.cpp runs the constants were fitted to are written out on the methodology page. Every speed is an estimate from memory bandwidth, not a measurement, and it is marked as an estimate wherever it appears.

Specs are copied from first-party pages (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple, and Framework) and from Hugging Face. Each spec links the page it was read from. Prices are dated snapshots. The sources (Newegg listings read via picksbycard, completed eBay sales via gpusold, gpuprix for the RTX A6000, componentprices for build parts, and the Apple and Framework configurators read by hand) are named on the methodology page. Where a price could not be verified, the page says "No price yet" instead of guessing.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The "Buy on Amazon" buttons are Amazon search links with the Associates tag gwoodhustle01-20. They are sponsored links (rel="sponsored"). The site never shows an Amazon price. Commissions are not an input to any ranking: orderings are computed from the specs and dated prices on the page. Newegg, picksbycard, gpuprix, gpusold, and componentprices links are citations, not affiliate links.

The hardware list covers discrete graphics cards, Mac Studio configurations, the Framework Desktop (AMD Strix Halo), and NVIDIA DGX Spark. My rig is a calculator for a machine you already have. It uses the same fit and speed rules as the rest of the site. Guides are computed from the same data, not written as a separate set of numbers.

Corrections and questions go to contact@rigperdollar.com. There is no phone number or postal address for the site. The contact page says what to include, and the privacy page says what the analytics tag does.