What can AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT run for creative?

Build: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT + — + 32 GB RAM (windows)

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

Runs comfortably
131 models

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

#1Hermes 3 Llama 3.1 8B
8B
hermes
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.2 GBHeadroom: 5.8 GB
ollama run hermes3:8b
60
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
4.90 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.25 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#2Gemma 2 9B Instruct
9B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 11.6 GBHeadroom: 4.4 GB
ollama run gemma2:9b
53
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
5.80 GB
KV cache
4.50 GB
Activations
0.30 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#3Hermes 3 Llama 3.2 3B
3B
hermes
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.4 GBHeadroom: 11.6 GB
160
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.80 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.10 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#4Dolphin 3.0 Llama 3.2 3B
3B
dolphin
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 4.4 GBHeadroom: 11.6 GB
160
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.80 GB
KV cache
1.50 GB
Activations
0.10 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#5Dolphin 3.0 8B
8B
dolphin
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 10.3 GBHeadroom: 5.7 GB
ollama run dolphin3:8b
60
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
5.00 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.26 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#6Gemma 2 2B Instruct
2B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.2 GBHeadroom: 12.8 GB
240
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.10 GB
KV cache
1.00 GB
Activations
0.06 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#7Gemma 4 E2B (Effective 2B)
2B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q8_0Context: 8,192VRAM: 4.3 GBHeadroom: 11.7 GB
ollama run gemma4:e2b
136
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
2.20 GB
KV cache
1.00 GB
Activations
0.12 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#8Qwen 3 1.7B
1.7B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 2.8 GBHeadroom: 13.2 GB
282
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
0.90 GB
KV cache
0.85 GB
Activations
0.05 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#9DeepSeek V2 Lite Chat
15.7B
deepseek
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 12.0 GBHeadroom: 4.0 GB
200
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
8.60 GB
KV cache
1.96 GB
Activations
0.43 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#10Kumru 2B
2.4B
mistral
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.8 GBHeadroom: 12.2 GB
ollama run alibayram/kumru:latest
200
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.50 GB
KV cache
1.20 GB
Activations
0.08 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#11Qwen 3.5 2B Turkish SFT
2B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 3.2 GBHeadroom: 12.8 GB
240
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.10 GB
KV cache
1.00 GB
Activations
0.06 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
#12Kanarya 2B
2B
other
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 2,048VRAM: 2.4 GBHeadroom: 13.6 GB
240
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
1.10 GB
KV cache
0.25 GB
Activations
0.06 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB

Runs with tradeoffs
83 models

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

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
160
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
200
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
4.00 GB
Activations
0.48 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
200
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
9.50 GB
KV cache
2.00 GB
Activations
0.48 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Dolphin 3.0 Mistral 24B
24B
dolphin
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 dolphin-mistral:24b
20
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
14.00 GB
KV cache
12.00 GB
Activations
0.71 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Gemma 4 12B
12B
gemma
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 15.0 GBHeadroom: 1.0 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 1.0 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run gemma4:12b
40
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
7.60 GB
KV cache
6.00 GB
Activations
0.39 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
40
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
7.30 GB
KV cache
6.00 GB
Activations
0.37 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Qwen3.5 9B
9B
qwen
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 12.4 GBHeadroom: 3.6 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.6 GB headroom left for context growth
ollama run qwen3.5:9b
53
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
6.60 GB
KV cache
4.50 GB
Activations
0.34 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB
Falcon 3 10B
10B
falcon
Commercial OK
Quant: Q4_K_MContext: 8,192VRAM: 12.3 GBHeadroom: 3.7 GB
  • Tight VRAM fit — only 3.7 GB headroom left for context growth
48
tok/s
Estimated
Weights
6.00 GB
KV cache
5.00 GB
Activations
0.31 GB
Runtime
1.00 GB

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: 23 new comfortable, 102 new tradeoff

  • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • Gemma 3 270M
  • SmolLM2 135M Instruct
  • TinyLlama 1.1B Chat v1.0

Upgrade to AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT

~$729

20 GB VRAM (vs your 16 GB) plus a bandwidth jump from ~644 GB/s to ~800 GB/s.

Unlocks: 38 new comfortable

  • Qwen 3 0.6B
  • Gemma 4 12B
  • Qwen3.5 9B
  • Gemma 3 270M

Add a second AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

~$649

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: 94 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 (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.

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.

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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