What can Intel Arc A770 16GB run for chat?

Build: Intel Arc A770 16GB + — + 32 GB RAM (windows)

Memory: 16 GB VRAM + 32 GB system RAM
Runner: llama.cpp (Vulkan)

Runs comfortably
103 models

Ranked by fit for chat use case + predicted speed. Click a row for VRAM breakdown.

#1Qwen 3 0.6B
0.6B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 1.6 GBHeadroom: 14.4 GB
497
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.30 GB
KV cache
0.30 GB
Activations
0.02 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#2Qwen 3 1.7B
1.7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 2.8 GBHeadroom: 13.2 GB
175
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.90 GB
KV cache
0.85 GB
Activations
0.05 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#3TinyLlama 1.1B Chat v1.0
1.1B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 1.8 GBHeadroom: 14.2 GB
271
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.60 GB
KV cache
0.14 GB
Activations
0.03 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#4Gemma 2 2B Instruct
2B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.2 GBHeadroom: 12.8 GB
149
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.10 GB
KV cache
1.00 GB
Activations
0.06 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#5DeepSeek V2 Lite Chat
15.7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 12.0 GBHeadroom: 4.0 GB
124
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.60 GB
KV cache
1.96 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#6Kumru 2B
2.4B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.8 GBHeadroom: 12.2 GB
ollama run alibayram/kumru:latest
124
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.50 GB
KV cache
1.20 GB
Activations
0.08 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#7Granite 3.0 2B Instruct
2B
granite
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 4,096VRAM: 3.1 GBHeadroom: 12.9 GB
149
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.50 GB
KV cache
0.50 GB
Activations
0.08 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#8Falcon 3 3B Instruct
3B
falcon
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.3 GBHeadroom: 11.7 GB
99
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.70 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.09 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#9Dolphin 3.0 Llama 3.2 3B
3B
dolphin
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.4 GBHeadroom: 11.6 GB
99
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.80 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.10 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#10Hermes 3 Llama 3.2 3B
3B
hermes
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.4 GBHeadroom: 11.6 GB
99
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.80 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.10 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#11Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
3B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 6.1 GBHeadroom: 9.9 GB
ollama run llama3.2:3b
56
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
3.40 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.18 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Quant: Q4_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 8.9 GBHeadroom: 7.1 GB
ollama run brooqs/mistral-turkish-v2:latest
44
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.10 GB
KV cache
3.60 GB
Activations
0.21 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB

Runs with tradeoffs
51 models

Tight VRAM, partial CPU offload, or context-limited.

Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct
12B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 14.9 GBHeadroom: 1.1 GB
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 1.1 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run mistral-nemo:12b
25
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
7.50 GB
KV cache
6.00 GB
Activations
0.38 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Gemma 3 12B
12B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 14.7 GBHeadroom: 1.3 GB
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 1.3 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run gemma3:12b
25
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
7.30 GB
KV cache
6.00 GB
Activations
0.37 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
DeepSeek V3 Lite (16B MoE)
16B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 13.0 GBHeadroom: 3.0 GB
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.0 GB headroom left for context growth
124
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
2.00 GB
Activations
0.48 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
DeepSeek MoE 16B Base
16B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 4,096VRAM: 15.0 GBHeadroom: 1.0 GB
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 1.0 GB headroom left for context growth
124
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.48 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Mistral Small 3 24B
24B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 27.7 GBHeadroom: 7.5 GB
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~42% of layers run on CPU
ollama run mistral-small:24b
12
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
14.00 GB
KV cache
12.00 GB
Activations
0.71 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Mistral Small 3.2 24B
24B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 27.7 GBHeadroom: 7.5 GB
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~42% of layers run on CPU
12
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
14.00 GB
KV cache
12.00 GB
Activations
0.71 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 27.7 GBHeadroom: 7.5 GB
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~42% of layers run on CPU
12
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
14.00 GB
KV cache
12.00 GB
Activations
0.71 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Granite 3 MoE (3B active)
16B
granite
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 13.0 GBHeadroom: 3.0 GB
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.0 GB headroom left for context growth
99
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
2.00 GB
Activations
0.48 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB

What if you upgraded?

Hypothetical scenarios. We re-ran the compatibility engine for each.

+32 GB system RAM

Check the current price

Adds 32 GB to your CPU-offload working set. Helps when models don't quite fit in VRAM.

Unlocks: 5 new comfortable, 69 new tradeoff

  • • Gemma 3 270M
  • • SmolLM2 135M Instruct
  • • SmolLM2 360M Instruct
  • • VBART Large (Turkish Summarization)

Add a second Intel Arc A770 16GB

Launch MSRP $349 (2022). Check the current price.

Tensor parallelism splits the model across both cards, effectively doubling VRAM. Bandwidth doesn't double — runs ~1.5× the single-card speed in practice.

Unlocks: 50 new comfortable

  • • Qwen 3 30B-A3B
  • • Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
  • • Qwen 3 32B
  • • Gemma 4 31B Dense

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Won't run
top 5 popular models

Need more memory than you have. Shown for orientation.

DeepSeek V4 Pro (1.6T MoE)
1600B
deepseek
Commercial OK

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (16 GB) + 60% of system RAM (19 GB) combined.

—
Qwen 3.5 235B-A17B (MoE)
397B
qwen
Commercial OK

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (16 GB) + 60% of system RAM (19 GB) combined.

—
Qwen 3 235B-A22B
235B
qwen
Commercial OK

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (16 GB) + 60% of system RAM (19 GB) combined.

—
DeepSeek R1 (671B reasoning)
671B
deepseek
Commercial OK

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (16 GB) + 60% of system RAM (19 GB) combined.

—
DeepSeek V4 Flash (284B MoE)
284B
deepseek
Commercial OK

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (16 GB) + 60% of system RAM (19 GB) combined.

—

How to read these numbers

Measured here
Measured here - RunLocalAI ran this exact combo on owner hardware with public evidence.

Source-backed
Source-backed / community - a reproduced public source supports the speed, but it is not labeled as owner-measured.

Extrapolated
Extrapolated - predicted from a measured benchmark on similar-bandwidth hardware.

Estimated
Estimated - formula based on VRAM bandwidth and model architecture; not a benchmark row.

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