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URL: https://willitrunai.com/can-run/nous-dolphin-13b-on-rtx-a4500-20gb


Can Nous Dolphin 13B run on RTX A4500 20GB?

YES — With Q4_K_M

B61Good
Estimated from fit model

Nous Dolphin 13B needs ~23.3 GB VRAM. RTX A4500 20GB has 20.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~34 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: MediumStack: BasicBottleneck: Host offload
Share:

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.

Nous Dolphin 13B at Q5_K_M needs 24.8 GB — too much for RTX A4500 20GB (20.0 GB). Runs at Q4_K_M (23.3 GB) with medium quality. 4 quantization levels fit.
Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q5_K_M (High quality) — 24.8 GB, exceeds 20.0 GB available
24.8 GB required20.0 GB available
124% VRAM needed

4.8 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization

Fit status

Too heavy

Decode

26.0 tok/s

TTFT

7442 ms

Safe context

10K

Memory

24.8 GB / 20.0 GB

Offload

20%

Memory breakdown

Weights9.4 GB
KV Cache12.2 GB
Runtime1.2 GB
Headroom2.0 GB

See how fast it feels

With memory offload — actual speed may be lower
See how fast it feelsNous Dolphin 13B on RTX A4500 20GB
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: 26.0 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 1.1 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatATight fit54.4 tok/s1941 ms10K
CodingFToo heavy26.0 tok/s7442 ms10K
Agentic CodingFToo heavy11.2 tok/s25161 ms10K
ReasoningFToo heavy26.0 tok/s8795 ms10K
RAGFToo heavy11.2 tok/s31451 ms10K

Quantization options

How Nous Dolphin 13B (13B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX A4500 20GB (20.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
5.1 GB
LowB68
Q3_K_S
3
6.4 GB
LowB68
NVFP4
4

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 99

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Nous Dolphin 13B well

👁 NVIDIA
RTX 3090 24GBBudget pick
24 GB VRAM (+4)936 GB/s (+296)
A
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.48.5 tok/s decode

Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.

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

~$1,499 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX 4090 24GBBest value
24 GB VRAM (+4)1008 GB/s (+368)
A
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.56.7 tok/s decode

Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.

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

~$1,599 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX A5500 24GBNVIDIA upgrade
24 GB VRAM (+4)768 GB/s (+128)
A
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.44.3 tok/s decode

Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.

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

~$3,200 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

See all results for RTX A4500 20GBSee all hardware for Nous Dolphin 13B
7.3 GB
Medium
B69
Q4_K_M
4
7.9 GB
MediumB70
Q5_K_M
5
9.4 GB
HighA71
Q6_K
6
10.7 GB
HighA71
Q8_0Best for your GPU
8
13.9 GB
Very HighA71
F16
16
26.7 GB
MaximumF0

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.