New to local AI

So I casually used chat gpt for a while now, but recently started using it more heavily, but don’t like paying the $100 a month for pro. I’ve needed a pc upgrade for a while and decided I’d “kill 2 birds with one stone” or so I thought… I got AND 9950x3d 64gb ddr5 ram and a 5090. For gaming/CAD/3d scanning it’s a monster. But I’ve been looking at local models and I am 1000% lost. I’ve come to learn that (at least in my experience so far) they are nowhere near the frontier models from chat/claud etc… which to a degree I expected, just not this bad. Am I doing something wrong? I’m not a programmer so I’m trying to learn as I go, but there is so much terminology I don’t understand and it’s very overwhelming. I feel like every local model I have tried just sucks. I know these models love hardware but a 5090 doesn’t ever scratch it???? What do you guys use local AI for? How do you make models more usable? Sorry in advance if this is dumb or repetitive 😂