What can AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX run for reasoning?

Build: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX + — + 32 GB RAM (windows)

Memory: 24 GB VRAM + 32 GB system RAM
Runner: llama.cpp (Vulkan)

Runs comfortably
120 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: 10.2 GBHeadroom: 13.8 GBTTFT: fast
89
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.90 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
1.00 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: 10.2 GBHeadroom: 13.8 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run RefinedNeuro/RN_TR_R1:latest
89
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.90 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
1.00 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: 9.9 GBHeadroom: 14.1 GBTTFT: fast
89
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.70 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.24 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~167 ms (fast)
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.8 GBHeadroom: 13.2 GBTTFT: fast
80
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
5.00 GB
KV cache
4.50 GB
Activations
0.26 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~188 ms (fast)
#5DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B
7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 13.0 GBHeadroom: 11.0 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run deepseek-r1:7b
58
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.10 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.41 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)
#6Phi-4 Reasoning 14B
14B
phi
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 16.8 GBHeadroom: 7.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run phi4-reasoning:14b
51
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.40 GB
KV cache
7.00 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~292 ms (fast)
#7DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B
14B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 16.8 GBHeadroom: 7.2 GBTTFT: fast
ollama run deepseek-r1:14b
51
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.40 GB
KV cache
7.00 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~292 ms (fast)
#8DeepSeek V3 Lite (16B MoE)
16B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 19.0 GBHeadroom: 5.0 GBTTFT: instant
298
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
8.00 GB
Activations
0.48 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~50 ms (instant)
#9DeepSeek R1 Distill Mistral 24B
24B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 18.7 GBHeadroom: 5.3 GBTTFT: noticeable
30
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
14.00 GB
KV cache
3.00 GB
Activations
0.70 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~500 ms (noticeable)
#10InternLM 2.5 7B Chat
7B
internlm
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.1 GBHeadroom: 14.9 GBTTFT: fast
102
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)
#11Qwen 2.5 Math 7B
7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 4,096VRAM: 7.4 GBHeadroom: 16.6 GBTTFT: fast
102
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
1.75 GB
Activations
0.22 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)
#12Qwen 3 7B
7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 9.1 GBHeadroom: 14.9 GBTTFT: fast
102
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.40 GB
KV cache
3.50 GB
Activations
0.23 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~146 ms (fast)

Runs with tradeoffs
56 models

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

Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 22.8 GBHeadroom: 1.2 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 1.2 GB headroom left for context growth
23
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
17.10 GB
KV cache
3.88 GB
Activations
0.86 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~646 ms (noticeable)
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B
32B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 37.0 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Partial CPU offload: ~35% of layers run on CPU
ollama run deepseek-r1:32b
22
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
19.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
0.96 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
QwQ 32B Preview
32B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 37.0 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Partial CPU offload: ~35% of layers run on CPU
ollama run qwq:32b
22
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
19.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
0.96 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 23.5 GBHeadroom: 0.5 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 0.5 GB headroom left for context growth
22
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
17.60 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.88 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
Qwen3 Swallow 32B RL v0.2
32B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 23.5 GBHeadroom: 0.5 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 0.5 GB headroom left for context growth
22
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
17.60 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.88 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 3 32B
32B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: AWQ-INT4Context: 8,192VRAM: 37.0 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Partial CPU offload: ~35% of layers run on CPU
14
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
19.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
0.96 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)
Sarvam M
24B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 4,096VRAM: 20.9 GBHeadroom: 3.1 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.1 GB headroom left for context growth
30
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
13.20 GB
KV cache
6.00 GB
Activations
0.66 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~500 ms (noticeable)
Magistral 32B
32B
mistral
Quant: AWQ-INT4Context: 8,192VRAM: 37.0 GBHeadroom: 6.2 GBTTFT: noticeable
  • Partial CPU offload: ~35% of layers run on CPU
14
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
19.00 GB
KV cache
16.00 GB
Activations
0.96 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Time to first token (prefill, 512-token prompt): ~667 ms (noticeable)

What if you upgraded?

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

+32 GB system RAM

~$80–150

Doubles your CPU-offload working set. Helps when models don't quite fit in VRAM.

Unlocks: 64 new comfortable, 73 new tradeoff

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

Upgrade to AMD Instinct MI210

see current pricing

64 GB VRAM (vs your 24 GB) plus a bandwidth jump from ~960 GB/s to ~1638 GB/s.

Unlocks: 135 new comfortable

  • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • Qwen 3 30B-A3B
  • Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
  • Qwen3.6 27B

Add a second AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

~$899

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: 117 new comfortable

  • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • Qwen 3 30B-A3B
  • Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B Instruct
  • Qwen3.6 27B

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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 (19 GB) combined.

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

Even with CPU offload, needs more memory than your VRAM (24 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 (24 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 (24 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 (24 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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