What can NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 run for long context?

Build: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 + — + 32 GB RAM (windows)

Memory: 16 GB VRAM + 32 GB system RAM
Runner: llama.cpp / Ollama (CUDA)

Runs comfortably
60 models

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

#1Qwen 3 8B
8B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.8 GBHeadroom: 5.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run qwen3:8b
129
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.80 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~366 ms (fast)
#2Gemma 4 E4B (Effective 4B)
4B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 8.4 GBHeadroom: 7.6 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run gemma4:e4b
147
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
2.00 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~183 ms (fast)
#3Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct
3.8B
phi
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 8.0 GBHeadroom: 8.0 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run phi3.5:3.8b
155
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.10 GB
KV cache
1.90 GB
Activations
0.21 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~174 ms (fast)
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.4 GBHeadroom: 5.6 GBTTFT: fast
129
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~366 ms (fast)
#5Codestral Mamba 7B
7B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.7 GBHeadroom: 6.3 GBTTFT: fast
148
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.20 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.22 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~320 ms (fast)
#6Falcon Mamba 7B
7B
falcon
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.7 GBHeadroom: 6.3 GBTTFT: fast
148
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.20 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.22 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~320 ms (fast)
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 11.1 GBHeadroom: 4.9 GBTTFT: fast
129
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
5.00 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.26 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~366 ms (fast)
#8Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct
7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 10.8 GBHeadroom: 5.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run qwen2.5:7b
84
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.10 GB
KV cache
0.47 GB
Activations
0.41 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~320 ms (fast)
#9Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
8B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 11.8 GBHeadroom: 4.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run llama3.1:8b
73
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.50 GB
KV cache
1.07 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~366 ms (fast)
#10InternLM 2.5 7B Chat
7B
internlm
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.9 GBHeadroom: 6.1 GBTTFT: fast
148
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~320 ms (fast)
#11Malhajar Mistral 7B Turkish
7.2B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q5_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.8 GBHeadroom: 5.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run koezgen/malhajar-mistral-tur7b:latest
126
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
5.10 GB
KV cache
3.60 GB
Activations
0.26 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~329 ms (fast)
#12Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
3B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 6.9 GBHeadroom: 9.1 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run llama3.2:3b
196
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
3.40 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.18 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~137 ms (fast)

Runs with tradeoffs
46 models

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

Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct
12B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 15.7 GBHeadroom: 0.3 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 0.3 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run mistral-nemo:12b
86
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
7.50 GB
KV cache
6.00 GB
Activations
0.38 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~549 ms (noticeable)
Qwen 3 14B
14B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 12.4 GBHeadroom: 3.6 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.6 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen3:14b
74
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.40 GB
KV cache
1.75 GB
Activations
0.42 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~640 ms (noticeable)
Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct
14B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 12.9 GBHeadroom: 3.1 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.1 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen2.5:14b
74
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.90 GB
KV cache
1.75 GB
Activations
0.45 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~640 ms (noticeable)
DeepSeek V2 Lite Chat
15.7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 12.8 GBHeadroom: 3.2 GBTTFT: fast
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.2 GB headroom left for context growth
431
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.60 GB
KV cache
1.96 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~110 ms (fast)
Gemma 4 Turkish 26B (4B active)
26B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 29.8 GBHeadroom: 5.4 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~46% of layers run on CPU
40
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
14.30 GB
KV cache
13.00 GB
Activations
0.72 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1189 ms (noticeable)
Gemma 3 27B
27B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 32.1 GBHeadroom: 3.1 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~50% of layers run on CPU
ollama run gemma3:27b
38
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
16.00 GB
KV cache
13.50 GB
Activations
0.81 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1234 ms (noticeable)
Qwen3.8 27B
27B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 32.6 GBHeadroom: 2.6 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~51% of layers run on CPU
ollama run qwen3.8:27b
38
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
16.50 GB
KV cache
13.50 GB
Activations
0.83 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1234 ms (noticeable)
Qwen 3 30B-A3B
30B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 24.5 GBHeadroom: 10.7 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~35% of layers run on CPU
ollama run qwen3:30b
34
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
18.00 GB
KV cache
3.75 GB
Activations
0.90 GB
Runtime
1.80 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1371 ms (noticeable)

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: 28 new comfortable, 57 new tradeoff

  • • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • • Qwen 3 1.7B
  • • Gemma 3 270M
  • • SmolLM2 135M Instruct

Upgrade to NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti 22GB (China-mod)

Check the current price

22 GB VRAM (vs your 16 GB) plus a bandwidth jump from ~960 GB/s to ~616 GB/s.

Unlocks: 47 new comfortable

  • • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • • Qwen 3 14B
  • • Qwen 3 1.7B
  • • Gemma 3 270M

Add a second NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

Launch MSRP $999 (2025). 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: 68 new comfortable

  • • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • • Qwen 3 30B-A3B
  • • Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
  • • Qwen 3 32B

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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 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.

—
Llama 4 Scout
109B
llama
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.

—
Cloud GPU rental

Not enough VRAM for these models? Rent a GPU by the hour

The models above need more memory than 16 GB VRAM + 32 GB system RAM. You can rent a GPU with enough VRAM by the hour to run one of them, or to test it before you buy hardware. For daily use, owning a card usually costs less over time.

RunPod

billed per GPU-hour

Hourly GPU pods, in community-cloud and secure-cloud tiers.

The two tiers run on different hosts and terms. Check which tier a pod is on before a long job.

Rent on RunPod

Vast.ai

billed per GPU-hour

Marketplace of host-listed GPUs; price and reliability vary by host.

Host quality varies. Filter for verified hosts and check the host's reliability before a long run.

Rent on Vast.ai

Referral links: RunLocalAI may earn a commission or account credits if you sign up and rent, at no extra cost to you. Hourly rates and which GPUs are listed change all the time, so check the provider's page before you start. Editorial opinions are independent of the referral relationship; see how we make money.

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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