Can Qwen 3.5 9B run on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB?
YES — Tight Fit
Qwen 3.5 9B needs ~10.0 GB VRAM. RTX 2080 Ti 11GB has 11.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~78 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
Fit status
Tight fit
Decode
78.4 tok/s
TTFT
2469 ms
Safe context
23K
Memory
10.0 GB / 11.0 GB
Memory breakdown
See how fast it feels
What limits this setup
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
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
Performance by workload
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | S | Runs well | 78.4 tok/s | 1347 ms | 23K |
| Coding | S | Tight fit | 78.4 tok/s | 2469 ms | 23K |
| Agentic Coding | A | Very compromised (needs ~0.5 GB host RAM) | 45.7 tok/s | 6164 ms | 23K |
| Reasoning | S | Tight fit | 78.4 tok/s | 2918 ms | 23K |
| RAG | A | Very compromised (needs ~0.5 GB host RAM) | 45.7 tok/s | 7705 ms | 23K |
Quantization options
How Qwen 3.5 9B (9B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB (11.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 3.5 GB | Low | S92 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 4.4 GB | Low | S94 |
NVFP4 | 4 | 5.0 GB | Medium | S94 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 5.5 GB | Medium | S94 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 6.5 GB | High | S94 |
Q6_KBest for your GPU | 6 | 7.4 GB | High | S93 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 9.6 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 18.5 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Get started
Copy-paste commands to run Qwen 3.5 9B on your machine.
Run
ollama run qwen3.5:9b