Can the NVIDIA RTX 4090 run Qwen3 8B?

RTX 4090 × Qwen3 8B8K context
YesRuns fully on the GPU
Memory at FP1618.2 GB of 24 GB
Weights 16.4 GBKV cache 1.2 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantFP16Full quality
Memory18.2 GBof 24 GB usable
Speed~37tokens 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 4090 can run Qwen3 8B fully in VRAM at FP16 (full quality), using about 18.2 GB of the 24 GB available, at roughly 37 tokens/second.

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 FP16, which is full quality: pick that GGUF in LM Studio or from Hugging Face.

Run it in the cloud

No NVIDIA RTX 4090? Run Qwen3 8B in the cloud.

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

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 24 GB the NVIDIA RTX 4090 can use.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality18.2 GBFits~37 tok/s
Q8_0Near-lossless10.5 GBFits~70 tok/s
Q6_KExcellent8.5 GBFits~90 tok/s
Q5_K_MVery good7.6 GBFits~104 tok/s
Q4_K_MGood, most popular6.8 GBFits~122 tok/s
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded5.8 GBFits~151 tok/s
Q2_KHeavily degraded4.9 GBFits~197 tok/s

Frequently asked questions

Can NVIDIA RTX 4090 run Qwen3 8B?

Yes. The NVIDIA RTX 4090 can run Qwen3 8B fully in VRAM at FP16 (full quality), using about 18.2 GB of the 24 GB available, at roughly 37 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 4090?

Roughly 37 tokens per second at FP16, estimated from the NVIDIA RTX 4090's 1008 GB/s memory bandwidth.