Can Nous Dolphin 13B run on Quadro RTX 6000 24GB?
YES — With Offload
Nous Dolphin 13B needs ~25.2 GB VRAM. Quadro RTX 6000 24GB has 24.0 GB. With Q5_K_M quantization, expect ~33 tok/s.
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.
Select quantization to explore
1.2 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Runs with offload (needs ~0.4 GB host RAM)
Decode
33.2 tok/s
TTFT
5830 ms
Safe context
14K
Memory
25.2 GB / 24.0 GB
Memory breakdown
See how fast it feels
What limits this setup
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
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.
Older PCIe generation
PCIe 3.0 is workable, but it compounds the penalty when you offload heavily or try to scale across multiple cards.
Best improvement path
Buy headroom, not only minimum fit
A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.
Performance by workload
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A | Runs well | 50.5 tok/s | 2090 ms | 14K |
| Coding | A | Runs with offload (needs ~0.4 GB host RAM) | 33.2 tok/s | 5830 ms | 14K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 13.9 tok/s | 20209 ms | 14K |
| Reasoning | A | Runs with offload (needs ~0.4 GB host RAM) | 33.2 tok/s | 6890 ms | 14K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 13.9 tok/s | 25261 ms | 14K |
Quantization options
How Nous Dolphin 13B (13B params) fits at each quantization level on Quadro RTX 6000 24GB (24.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 5.1 GB | Low | B66 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 6.4 GB | Low | B67 |
NVFP4 | 4 | 7.3 GB | Medium | B67 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 7.9 GB | Medium | B68 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 9.4 GB | High | B69 |
Q6_K | 6 | 10.7 GB | High | B70 |
Q8_0Best for your GPU | 8 | 13.9 GB | Very High | A71 |
F16 | 16 | 26.7 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Get started
Copy-paste commands to run Nous Dolphin 13B on your machine.
Run
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
--hf-repo "nousresearch/Nous-Dolphin-13B" \
--hf-file "Nous-Dolphin-13B-Q5_K_M.gguf" \
-c 4096 -ngl 99Your hardware
