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URL: https://willitrunai.com/can-run/aya-expanse-8b-on-rx-9060-8gb


Can Aya Expanse 8B run on RX 9060 8GB?

YES — With Offload

C41Usable
Estimated from fit model

Aya Expanse 8B needs ~8.5 GB VRAM. RX 9060 8GB has 8.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~24 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: LowStack: StandardBottleneck: Host offload
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Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.

Current mode

Balanced

Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) — 8.5 GB, 26.2 tok/s, Runs with offload (needs ~0.3 GB host RAM)
8.5 GB required8.0 GB available
106% VRAM needed

0.5 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization

Fit status

Runs with offload (needs ~0.3 GB host RAM)

Decode

26.2 tok/s

TTFT

7398 ms

Safe context

8K

Memory

8.5 GB / 8.0 GB

Offload

10%

Memory breakdown

Weights4.9 GB
KV Cache2.0 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom0.8 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsAya Expanse 8B on RX 9060 8GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>What is local AI inference?
Local AI inference means running an AI language model directly on your own hardware — your laptop, desktop, or server — instead of sending requests to a remote cloud API. When you run inference locally the model weights are loaded into your GPU or unified memory. Each token you generate requires reading those weights from memory, so memory bandwidth is the main bottleneck for decode speed. Key benefits of running locally: - Full privacy: your prompts never leave your machine - No per-token cost or rate limits - Works offline once the model is downloaded - Latency depends only on your hardware
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>How much VRAM do I need?
It depends on the model size and quantization level. A rough rule of thumb: Model size Q4 (4-bit) Q8 (8-bit) FP16 7B params ~4.3 GB ~7.5 GB ~14 GB 13B params ~7.9 GB ~13.9 GB ~26 GB 70B params ~42.7 GB ~74.9 GB ~140 GB Most people use 4-bit quantization (Q4_K_M) which gives 90-95% of full quality at a fraction of the memory. A 24 GB GPU can comfortably run most 7B-13B models.
Estimated: 26.2 tok/s decode · 7.4s TTFT (warm) · 65 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.

CPU or host-memory offload is active

About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.

Very little memory headroom

You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.

Best improvement path

Remove offload with more accelerator memory

Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.

Buy headroom, not only minimum fit

A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.

Increase host RAM if you keep offloading

This setup may need roughly {ram} GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatCTight fit37.2 tok/s2840 ms8K
CodingCRuns with offload24.3 tok/s7953 ms8K
Agentic CodingFToo heavy15.8 tok/s17851 ms8K
ReasoningCRuns with offload24.3 tok/s9399 ms8K
RAGFToo heavy15.8 tok/s22314 ms8K

Quantization options

How Aya Expanse 8B (8B params) fits at each quantization level on RX 9060 8GB (8.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
3.1 GB
LowB55
Q3_K_S
3
3.9 GB
LowC55
NVFP4
4

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Aya Expanse 8B on your machine.

Run

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \ --hf-repo "CohereForAI/aya-expanse-8b" \ --hf-file "aya-expanse-8b-Q4_K_M.gguf" \ -c 4096 -ngl 99

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Aya Expanse 8B well

RX 7600 XT 16GBBudget pick
16 GB VRAM (+8)
C
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.36.8 tok/s decode

Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.

Raises estimated decode speed by about 40%.

~$329 MSRP

RX 9060 XT 16GBBest value
16 GB VRAM (+8)320 GB/s (+32)
C
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.44.4 tok/s decode

Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.

Raises estimated decode speed by about 69%.

~$349 MSRP

RX 7700 XT 12GBAMD upgrade
12 GB VRAM (+4)432 GB/s (+144)
B
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.57.1 tok/s decode

Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.

Raises estimated decode speed by about 118%.

~$449 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

See all results for RX 9060 8GBSee all hardware for Aya Expanse 8B
4.5 GB
Medium
C55
Q4_K_MBest for your GPU
4
4.9 GB
MediumC54
Q5_K_M
5
5.8 GB
HighF0
Q6_K
6
6.6 GB
HighF0
Q8_0
8
8.6 GB
Very HighF0
F16
16
16.4 GB
MaximumF0