Can Dolphin 2.9 8B run on RX 9060 XT 16GB?

YES — Runs Great

C53Usable

○Estimated from fit model

Dolphin 2.9 8B needs ~9.3 GB VRAM. RX 9060 XT 16GB has 16.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~44 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: LowStack: StandardBottleneck: Balanced

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) — 9.3 GB, 44.4 tok/s, Runs well

9.3 GB required16.0 GB available

58% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

44.4 tok/s

TTFT

4359 ms

Safe context

33K

Memory

9.3 GB / 16.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights4.9 GB

KV Cache2.0 GB

Runtime0.9 GB

Headroom1.6 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsDolphin 2.9 8B on RX 9060 XT 16GB
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: 44.4 tok/s decode · 4.4s TTFT (warm) · 111 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

This setup is broadly balanced for this model.

No major red flags

This recommendation has enough memory headroom and acceptable estimated speed for the selected workload.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	C	Runs well	44.4 tok/s	2378 ms	33K
Coding	C	Runs well	44.4 tok/s	4359 ms	33K
Agentic Coding	B	Runs well	44.4 tok/s	6341 ms	33K
Reasoning	C	Runs well	44.4 tok/s	5152 ms	33K
RAG	B	Runs well	44.4 tok/s	7926 ms	33K

Quantization options

How Dolphin 2.9 8B (8B params) fits at each quantization level on RX 9060 XT 16GB (16.0 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	3.1 GB	Low	C48
Q3_K_S	3	3.9 GB	Low	C48
NVFP4	4

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Dolphin 2.9 8B on your machine.

Run

ollama run dolphin-llama3

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Dolphin 2.9 8B well

RX 7900 XT 20GBBudget pick

20 GB VRAM (+4)800 GB/s (+480)

Raises estimated decode speed by about 138%.105.7 tok/s decode

Raises estimated decode speed by about 138%.

Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.

~$899 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX A4500 20GBBest value

20 GB VRAM (+4)640 GB/s (+320)

Raises estimated decode speed by about 148%.110 tok/s decode

Raises estimated decode speed by about 148%.