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
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VOOZH | about |
Nous Dolphin 13B needs ~23.3 GB VRAM. RTX A4500 20GB has 20.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~34 tok/s.
Operating mode
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
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%
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.
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.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A | Tight fit | 54.4 tok/s | 1941 ms | 10K |
| Coding | F | Too heavy | 26.0 tok/s | 7442 ms | 10K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 11.2 tok/s | 25161 ms | 10K |
| Reasoning | F | Too heavy | 26.0 tok/s | 8795 ms | 10K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 11.2 tok/s | 31451 ms | 10K |
How Nous Dolphin 13B (13B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX A4500 20GB (20.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 5.1 GB | Low | B68 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 6.4 GB | Low | B68 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
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 99Upgrade options
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
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
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
7.3 GB |
| Medium |
| B69 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 7.9 GB | Medium | B70 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 9.4 GB | High | A71 |
Q6_K | 6 | 10.7 GB | High | A71 |
Q8_0Best for your GPU | 8 | 13.9 GB | Very High | A71 |
F16 | 16 | 26.7 GB | Maximum | F0 |
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.