Rent a GPU

Can the NVIDIA RTX 3070 run Qwen3 8B?

RTX 3070 × Qwen3 8B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at Q5_K_M7.6 GB of 8 GB
Weights 5.8 GBKV cache 1.2 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ5_K_MVery good
Memory7.6 GBof 8 GB usable
Speed~46tokens per second
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Yes. The NVIDIA RTX 3070 can run Qwen3 8B fully in VRAM at Q5_K_M (very good), using about 7.6 GB of the 8 GB available, at roughly 46 tokens/second.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

With Ollama installed, one command downloads and starts Qwen3 8B:

ollama run qwen3:8b

Ollama's default download is Q4_K_M (about 6.8 GB here). You have room for Q5_K_M, which is very good: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the RTX 3070

Run it in the cloud

No NVIDIA RTX 3070? Run Qwen3 8B in the cloud.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time.

Rent a GPU on RunPodRent a GPU on Vast.ai

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 8 GB the NVIDIA RTX 3070 can use.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality18.2 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless10.5 GBToo big—
Q6_KExcellent8.5 GBToo big—
Q5_K_MVery good7.6 GBFits~46 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular6.8 GBFits~54 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded5.8 GBFits~67 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded4.9 GBFits~88 tok/s

GPUs that run Qwen3 8B comfortably

Models that run well on the NVIDIA RTX 3070

Frequently asked questions

Can NVIDIA RTX 3070 run Qwen3 8B?

Yes. The NVIDIA RTX 3070 can run Qwen3 8B fully in VRAM at Q5_K_M (very good), using about 7.6 GB of the 8 GB available, at roughly 46 tokens/second.

How much VRAM does Qwen3 8B need?

About 6.8 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 18.2 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Qwen3 8B on the NVIDIA RTX 3070?

Roughly 46 tokens per second at Q5_K_M, estimated from the NVIDIA RTX 3070's 448 GB/s memory bandwidth.