What can AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX run for reasoning?

Build: RX 7900 XTX + Ryzen 9 7950X + 64GB DDR5 (Linux/ROCm)

Memory: 24 GB VRAM + 64 GB system RAM
Runner: llama.cpp (ROCm)

Runs comfortably
66 models

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

#1Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B
8B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 11.2 GBHeadroom: 12.8 GBTTFT: fast
109
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.90 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~167 ms (fast)
#2RefinedNeuro RN TR R1
8B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 11.2 GBHeadroom: 12.8 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run RefinedNeuro/RN_TR_R1:latest
109
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.90 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~167 ms (fast)
#3DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B
8B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.9 GBHeadroom: 13.1 GBTTFT: fast
109
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.70 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.24 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~167 ms (fast)
#4DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B
7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 14.0 GBHeadroom: 10.0 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run deepseek-r1:7b
71
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.10 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.41 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)
#5Phi-4 Reasoning 14B
14B
phi
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 17.8 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run phi4-reasoning:14b
62
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.40 GB
KV cache
7.00 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~292 ms (fast)
#6DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B
14B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 17.8 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run deepseek-r1:14b
62
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.40 GB
KV cache
7.00 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~292 ms (fast)
#7Qwen 2.5 Math 7B
7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 4,096VRAM: 8.4 GBHeadroom: 15.6 GBTTFT: fast
125
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
1.75 GB
Activations
0.22 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)
#8InternLM 2.5 7B Chat
7B
internlm
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.1 GBHeadroom: 13.9 GBTTFT: fast
125
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)
#9Phi-4 14B
14B
phi
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 17.8 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run phi4:14b
62
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.40 GB
KV cache
7.00 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~292 ms (fast)
#10RefinedNeuro RN TR R2
8B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 11.2 GBHeadroom: 12.8 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run RefinedNeuro/RN_TR_R2:latest
109
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.90 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~167 ms (fast)
#11DeepSeek V2 Lite Chat
15.7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 18.9 GBHeadroom: 5.1 GBTTFT: instant
364
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.60 GB
KV cache
7.85 GB
Activations
0.44 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~50 ms (instant)
#12DeepSeek MoE 16B Base
16B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 4,096VRAM: 16.0 GBHeadroom: 8.0 GBTTFT: instant
364
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.48 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~50 ms (instant)

Runs with tradeoffs
36 models

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

Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 23.8 GBHeadroom: 0.2 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 0.2 GB headroom left for context growth
28
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
17.10 GB
KV cache
3.88 GB
Activations
0.86 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~646 ms (noticeable)
QwQ 32B Preview
32B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 38.0 GBHeadroom: 24.4 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~37% of layers run on CPU
  • • CPU is the bottleneck — upgrading RAM bandwidth helps more than VRAM here
ollama run qwq:32b
5
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
19.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
0.96 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
32B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 53.7 GBHeadroom: 8.7 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~55% of layers run on CPU
  • • CPU is the bottleneck — upgrading RAM bandwidth helps more than VRAM here
ollama run deepseek-r1:32b
2
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
34.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
1.71 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B
70B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 52.8 GBHeadroom: 9.6 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~55% of layers run on CPU
  • • CPU is the bottleneck — upgrading RAM bandwidth helps more than VRAM here
ollama run deepseek-r1:70b
1
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
40.00 GB
KV cache
8.75 GB
Activations
2.00 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1459 ms (noticeable)
Qwen 2.5 Math 72B
72B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 54.1 GBHeadroom: 8.3 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~56% of layers run on CPU
  • • CPU is the bottleneck — upgrading RAM bandwidth helps more than VRAM here
1
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
41.00 GB
KV cache
9.00 GB
Activations
2.05 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1501 ms (noticeable)
Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
32B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 22.5 GBHeadroom: 1.5 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 1.5 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen2.5-coder:32b
27
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
19.00 GB
KV cache
0.54 GB
Activations
0.95 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct
14B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q5_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 20.0 GBHeadroom: 4.0 GBTTFT: fast
  • • Tight VRAM fit — only 4.0 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen2.5:14b
55
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
10.50 GB
KV cache
7.00 GB
Activations
0.53 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~292 ms (fast)
Llama 3.1 Nemotron 70B Instruct
70B
llama
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 52.8 GBHeadroom: 9.6 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • • Partial CPU offload: ~55% of layers run on CPU
  • • CPU is the bottleneck — upgrading RAM bandwidth helps more than VRAM here
ollama run nemotron:70b
1
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
40.00 GB
KV cache
8.75 GB
Activations
2.00 GB
Runtime
2.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~1459 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: 46 new comfortable, 40 new tradeoff

  • • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • • Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
  • • Qwen 3 1.7B
  • • Gemma 3 270M

Upgrade to AMD Instinct MI210

Launch MSRP $8,500 (2022). Check the current price.

64 GB VRAM (vs your 24 GB) plus a bandwidth jump from ~960 GB/s to ~? GB/s.

Unlocks: 79 new comfortable

  • • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • • Qwen 3 30B-A3B
  • • Llama 3.3 70B Instruct
  • • Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct

Add a second AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Launch MSRP $999 (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: 70 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 (24 GB) + 60% of system RAM (38 GB) combined.

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

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (24 GB) + 60% of system RAM (38 GB) combined.

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

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (24 GB) + 60% of system RAM (38 GB) combined.

—
Llama 4 Scout
109B
llama
Commercial OK

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (24 GB) + 60% of system RAM (38 GB) combined.

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

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (24 GB) + 60% of system RAM (38 GB) combined.

—
Cloud GPU rental

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

The models above need more memory than 24 GB VRAM + 64 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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