Which local LLMs can the Radeon RX 9070 XT run?
Assumes 32 GB of DDR5-5600 system RAM, Windows with this GPU driving the display, 8k context and an f16 KV cache.
Specs
- VRAM
- 16 GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 645.0 GB/s
- FP16 compute
- 97.3 TFLOPS
- Launch year
- 2025
- Price
- $689 street (as of 2026-08-09)
Verdicts at a glance
At Q4_K_M (or the closest available quant) with 8k context.
- Runs great14 modelsRuns well2 modelsRuns slowly8 modelsWon't run5 models1 more model runs at a lower quant.
How to read the verdicts
- Runs great
- Fully on the GPU at 20 tok/s or more
- Runs well
- Fully on the GPU at 8–20 tok/s; MoE experts in system RAM at 20 tok/s or more; or at least 90% on the GPU at 8 tok/s or more
- Runs slowly
- 2–8 tok/s; CPU-only; less than 90% on the GPU; or MoE experts in system RAM below 20 tok/s
- Won't run
- Does not fit, or under 2 tok/s
Every model on the Radeon RX 9070 XT
Dense models split between GPU and CPU slow down sharply — the CPU side sets the pace. MoE models that keep only their experts in system RAM degrade far more gently.
Scroll sideways to see every column.
| Model | Verdict | Speed | Quant | Memory | Runs as | Context | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXAONE 4.0 1.2B | Runs great | est. 383.1 tok/s337.1–429.0calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 2.5 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 64k | — |
| HyperCLOVA X SEED 1.5B | Runs great | est. 277.1 tok/s243.9–310.4calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 3.0 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 16k | — |
| gpt-oss-20b | Runs great | est. 141.0 tok/s112.8–169.2calibrated estimate ±20% | MXFP4 | 13.5 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 64k |
|
| Kanana 1.5 15.7B-A3B | Runs great | est. 105.1 tok/s84.1–126.1calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 12.7 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 16k | — |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B | Runs great | est. 83.9 tok/s73.9–94.0calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 7.2 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 64k |
|
| Kanana 1.5 8B | Runs great | est. 83.9 tok/s73.9–94.0calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 7.2 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 32k | — |
| Llama 3.1 8B | Runs great | est. 83.9 tok/s73.9–94.0calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 7.2 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 64k | — |
| Qwen3.5 9B | Runs great | est. 82.0 tok/s72.1–91.8calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 7.3 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 128k | — |
| Qwen3 8B | Runs great | est. 80.7 tok/s71.0–90.3calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 7.4 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 32k | — |
| Gemma 4 12B | Runs great | est. 65.7 tok/s57.8–73.6calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 8.8 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 64k | — |
| Gemma 3 12B | Runs great | est. 64.2 tok/s56.5–71.9calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 9.0 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 64k | — |
| HyperCLOVA X SEED Think 14B | Runs great | est. 49.3 tok/s34.5–64.2theoretical estimate ±30% | Q4_K_M | 11.4 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 32k |
|
| Qwen3 14B | Runs great | est. 48.6 tok/s42.8–54.5calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 11.5 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 32k | — |
| Phi-4 | Runs great | est. 46.9 tok/s41.3–52.5calibrated estimate ±12% | Q4_K_M | 11.9 / 16.0 GB | Full GPU | up to 16k |
|
| Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | Runs well | est. 20.4 tok/s14.3–26.5theoretical estimate ±30% | Q4_K_M | 2.6 / 16.0 GB + 21.4 GB RAM | MoE experts in RAM | up to 256k |
|
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B | Runs well | est. 20.0 tok/s16.0–24.0calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 0.8 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 8k |
|
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | Runs slowly | est. 53.9 tok/s37.7–70.1theoretical estimate ±30% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 2.5 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 256k |
|
| Qwen3 30B-A3B (2507) | Runs slowly | est. 19.2 tok/s13.4–24.9theoretical estimate ±30% | Q4_K_M | 2.9 / 16.0 GB + 17.7 GB RAM | MoE experts in RAM | up to 64k |
|
| Gemma 3 27B | Runs slowly | est. 11.8 tok/s9.4–14.1calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 2.4 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 64k |
|
| Qwen3.5 27B | Runs slowly | est. 10.6 tok/s8.5–12.7calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 2.8 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 128k |
|
| EXAONE 4.0 32B | Runs slowly | est. 6.9 tok/s5.5–8.3calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 5.1 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 64k |
|
| EXAONE 4.5 33B | Runs slowly | est. 6.2 tok/s5.0–7.4calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 5.8 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 64k |
|
| Qwen3 32B | Runs slowly | est. 4.9 tok/s3.9–5.9calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 7.1 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 32k |
|
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B | Runs slowly | est. 4.9 tok/s3.9–5.8calibrated estimate ±20% | Q4_K_M | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 7.2 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 16k |
|
| Llama 3.3 70B | Won't runTry Q2_K (heavy quality loss): Runs slowly | est. 2.7 tok/s2.1–3.2calibrated estimate ±20% | Q2_K | 16.0 / 16.0 GB + 14.2 GB RAM | Partial offload | up to 16k | — |
| gpt-oss-120b | Won't run | — | MXFP4 | needs 64.3 GB | — | — |
|
| Qwen3.5 122B-A10B | Won't run | — | Q4_K_M | needs 79.0 GB | — | — |
|
| Solar Open 100B | Won't run | — | Q4_K_M | needs 64.4 GB | — | — |
|
| Solar Open 2 250B | Won't run | — | IQ4_XS | needs 137.2 GB | — | — |
|
Reasoning models spend extra tokens thinking, so their speed thresholds are 1.5× stricter (30 / 12 / 3 tok/s).
Measured results on the Radeon RX 9070 XT
Public benchmarks we calibrate against. Their conditions (context, backend, flags) can differ from the estimates above.
| Model | Quant | Backend | Context | Prompt (tok/s) | Generation (tok/s) | Flags | Source | Measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| llama-2-7b | Q4_0 | llama.cpp | 512 | 5,036.0 | 137.1 | Vulkan | github.com | 2025-03-15 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the largest model that runs entirely on the Radeon RX 9070 XT?
Mistral Small 3.2 24B at IQ4_XS (a 12.76 GB file) fits entirely in 16 GB with 8k context, at est. 35.7 tok/s (31.4–40.0, calibrated estimate ±12%).
How many local LLMs run well on the Radeon RX 9070 XT?
At Q4_K_M with 8k context, out of 29 tracked models: 14 run great, 2 run well, 8 run slowly and 5 won't run.
Can the Radeon RX 9070 XT run a 70B model like Llama 3.3 70B?
Runs slowly — Partial offload, Q2_K (heavy quality loss): est. 2.7 tok/s (2.1–3.2, calibrated estimate ±20%).
Speeds are estimates from memory bandwidth, calibrated against public benchmarks, and each one comes with an error band and a confidence label. Real results vary with drivers, backend, context length and thermals.