Can the NVIDIA RTX 5090 run Qwen2.5 72B?

RTX 5090 × Qwen2.5 72B8K context
Yes, with heavy quantizationFits only at a low-quality quant
Memory at Q2_K30.5 GB of 32 GB
Weights 27.3 GBKV cache 2.7 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ2_KHeavily degraded
Memory30.5 GBof 32 GB usable
Speed~39tokens 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

Only just. Qwen2.5 72B fits on the NVIDIA RTX 5090 at Q2_K, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 39 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

Run it with Ollama

Ollama's default qwen2.5:72b download is Q4_K_M, which needs about 47.4 GB, more than the 32 GB available. Download the Q2_K GGUF instead (LM Studio lists quants per model), or try a smaller context length.

New to this? Step-by-step setup for the RTX 5090

Run it in the cloud

Want full quality? Run Qwen2.5 72B on a bigger rented GPU.

Rent a cloud GPU by the hour. No upfront cost, stop any time. Not sure whether to rent or buy? Compare the cost.

Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 32 GB the NVIDIA RTX 5090 can use.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality148.7 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless80.5 GBToo big—
Q6_KExcellent62.9 GBToo big—
Q5_K_MVery good55 GBToo big—
Q4_K_MGood, most popular47.4 GBToo big—
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded38.8 GBToo big—
Q2_KHeavily degraded30.5 GBFits~39 tok/s

Frequently asked questions

Can NVIDIA RTX 5090 run Qwen2.5 72B?

Only just. Qwen2.5 72B fits on the NVIDIA RTX 5090 at Q2_K, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 39 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

How much VRAM does Qwen2.5 72B need?

About 47.4 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 148.7 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Qwen2.5 72B on the NVIDIA RTX 5090?

Roughly 39 tokens per second at Q2_K, estimated from the NVIDIA RTX 5090's 1792 GB/s memory bandwidth.