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URL: https://willitrunai.com/gpus/rx-590-8gb

⇱ AI Models for RX 590 8GB — What Runs on 8GB VRAM


AMD

RX 590 8GB

RX 500ConsumerGCN 4PCIe 3ROCm

Operating mode

Choose the operating mode for this hardware

Use this to bias workload recommendations toward responsiveness, background autonomy, lighter serving, or multi-GPU scale-out.

Current mode

Balanced

Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.

See Full AI Tier List for RX 590 8GB →

About this GPU for AI

The RX 590 8GB is a refreshed GCN 4 (Polaris) card from 2018, essentially an overclocked RX 580. Like the RX 580, it has no ROCm support and minimal Vulkan compute capability for modern AI frameworks. At 7 TFLOPS FP16, inference would be extremely slow even if the software cooperated. This GPU is a legacy gaming card with no practical AI inference use case.

Beyond LLMs

AI Capability Matrix

What AI tasks this GPU can handle — from text generation to image and video creation.

CapabilityStatusRepresentative ModelDetail
LLM Chat (7B)Runs nativelyLlama 3.1 8B Q4
LLM Coding (30B)Won’t fitQwen 3 30B Q4
LLM Large (70B)
no-rocmlegacynot-recommended-for-ai

Specifications

Compute
FP167 TFLOPS
INT814 TOPS
ArchitectureGCN 4
Memory
VRAM8 GB
Bandwidth256 GB/s
General
FamilyRX 500
SegmentConsumer
InterconnectPCIe 3
Compute PlatformROCM
MSRP$279

Key Features

GCN 4 architecture (Polaris 30, 12nm refresh)8 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus256 GB/s memory bandwidth36 Compute Units at higher clocks vs RX 580PCIe Gen 3 x16No ROCm support — GCN architecture excluded

For AI Workloads

Strengths
  • 8 GB VRAM could theoretically hold small models
  • Very inexpensive used market prices
Considerations
  • No ROCm support — GCN 4 is excluded from all AMD AI frameworks
  • 7 TFLOPS FP16 means inference is impractically slow
  • No meaningful Vulkan compute acceleration for modern LLMs
  • Not worth using for AI — any modern GPU is vastly better

Architecture

GCN 4

GCN 4 (Graphics Core Next 4th gen) is AMD's 14nm refresh of the Polaris architecture, powering the RX 500 series. It was the mainstream competitor to NVIDIA's Pascal GTX 10 series.

AI Relevance

No practical AI inference capability. Lacks the compute precision and memory bandwidth needed for LLM workloads. Only usable for very small models via CPU offloading with Vulkan backend.

Process: GlobalFoundries 14nmPlatform: ROCMPrecisions: FP32, FP16

Recommendations by Workload

Chat

S

Qwen 3.5 4B

Qwen 3.5 4B matches Chat and keeps a practical fit profile. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.

Decode 48.5 tok/s · 28K ctx · llama.cppEST.
5.2 GB / 8.0 GB VRAM

Coding

A

Codestral Mamba 7B

Codestral Mamba 7B is a specialized fit for Coding. It sits in the middle of the current generation mix. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama.

Decode 29.6 tok/s · 67K ctx · llama.cppEST.
6.5 GB / 8.0 GB VRAM

Agentic Coding

A

Full Model Compatibility

👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.5 4B
S95
4B6.3 GB49 tok/s28K ctx
dense
👁 Microsoft
Phi-4 Mini Reasoning 4B
S92
3.8B5.5 GB51 tok/s43K ctx
dense
👁 Jina AI
Jina Embeddings v3
A84

Just out of reach

Models you could run with an upgrade

High-quality models that need a bit more memory

Image & Video Generation

Diffusion Model Compatibility

21 of 52 models can generate images or video on your RX 590 8GB

ModelMax ResolutionGen TimeGrade
SD TurboImage512×512~10.4sS
Stable Diffusion 1.5Image512×768~20.7sS
Realistic Vision v5.1Image512×768~20.7sS
DreamShaper 8Image512×768~20.7sS
LCM DreamShaper v7

Upgrade paths

Upgrade from RX 590 8GB

See what you unlock with more powerful hardware

Upgrade options

Upgrade options

👁 NVIDIA
RTX 3080 10GBNext step up
10 GB VRAM (+2)760 GB/s (+504)
A
Unlocks 33 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Qwen 3 14B, Ministral 3 14B, Phi-4 14B+30 more · +144% faster avg

Unlocks 33 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.

Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 144%.

~$699 MSRP

RX 7700 XT 12GBAMD upgrade
12 GB VRAM (+4)432 GB/s (+176)
A
Unlocks 37 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Qwen 3 14B, Phi-4-reasoning-plus 14B, Ministral 3 14B+34 more · +77% faster avg

Unlocks 37 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.

Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 77%.

~$449 MSRP

RX 7600 XT 16GBBest value
16 GB VRAM (+8)288 GB/s (+32)
A
Unlocks 74 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Magistral Small 2507, Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct, Qwen 3 14B+71 more · +17% faster avg

Unlocks 74 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.

Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 17%.

~$329 MSRP

AMD Instinct MI350X 288GBBiggest leap
288 GB VRAM (+280)8000 GB/s (+7744)
B
Unlocks 155 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.Unlocks Qwen3-Coder 30B A3B Instruct, Qwen 3.5 397B A17B, Devstral 2 123B Instruct+152 more · +508% faster avg

Unlocks 155 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.

Lifts average decode speed across fitting models by about 508%.

~$8,000 MSRP

Frequently Asked Questions

Compare with similar

RX 590 8GB vs RTX 3050 8GBRX 590 8GB vs RTX 3060 Ti 8GBRX 590 8GB vs RTX 3070 8GB
Compare this GPUCompare with another GPU →
8GB
VRAM
256GB/s
Bandwidth
7TFLOPS
FP16 Compute
14TOPS
INT8 Inference
$279 MSRP
RX 590 8GBCategory AvgRTX 3080 10GB
Won’t fit
Llama 3.1 70B Q4
Image Gen (SDXL)Runs with sequential offloadSDXL 1.0 FP16~~3m 40s per image
Image Gen (Flux)Won't fitFlux.1 Dev FP16~~6m 13s per image
Image Gen (SD 3.5)Won't fitSD 3.5 Large FP16~~7m 36s per image
Video Short (25f)Won't fitLTX Video 2B~~1m 12s/frame
Video Long (100f)Won't fitWan Video 14B~~3m 32s/frame

Gemma 4 E2B

Gemma 4 E2B is a specialized fit for Agentic Coding. It is a recent-generation family, which helps on current local SOTA workloads. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama, lm-studio.

Decode 29.2 tok/s · 96K ctx · llama.cppEST.
5.9 GB / 8.0 GB VRAM

Reasoning

A

Codestral Mamba 7B

Codestral Mamba 7B is viable for Reasoning, but is not the most specialized choice. It sits in the middle of the current generation mix. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama.

Decode 29.6 tok/s · 67K ctx · llama.cppEST.
6.5 GB / 8.0 GB VRAM

RAG

A

Granite 4.1 3B

Granite 4.1 3B matches RAG and keeps a practical fit profile. It sits in the middle of the current generation mix. It fits natively with comfortable headroom. Context coverage stays within the requested workload envelope. Known distribution channels: huggingface, ollama.

Decode 42.0 tok/s · 59K ctx · llama.cppEST.
6.0 GB / 8.0 GB VRAM
0.57B4.8 GB8 tok/s8K ctx
dense
👁 BAAI
BGE M3
A81
0.57B4.0 GB8 tok/s8K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.5 9B
A79
9B9.4 GB11 tok/s6K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3 8B
A78
8B8.8 GB14 tok/s10K ctx
dense
👁 NVIDIA
Nemotron Nano 8B
A73
8B8.5 GB15 tok/s12K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen3-Coder 30B A3B Instruct
F0
30.5B21.8 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.5 397B A17B
F0
397B246.7 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Mistral
Devstral 2 123B Instruct
F0
123B82.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.5
F0
1000B619.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.6
F0
1000B619.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
+1moe
👁 DeepSeek
DeepSeek V4 Pro
F0
1600B865.6 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.5 27B
F0
27B21.3 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.6 27B
F0
27B19.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
+1dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.5 122B A10B
F0
122B78.6 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen3-VL 30B A3B Instruct
F0
30B21.5 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.6 35B A3B
F0
35B27.2 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
+1moe
👁 DeepSeek
DeepSeek V4 Flash
F0
284B161.0 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3.5 35B A3B
F0
35B24.5 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Mistral
Magistral Small 2507
F0
24B18.8 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Mistral
Devstral Small 2 24B Instruct
F0
24B18.8 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3 32B
F0
32B25.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3 14B
F0
14B12.7 GB4 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3 30B A3B
F0
30.5B21.8 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Mistral
Mistral Small 4 119B
F0
119B79.7 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Cohere
Command A 111B
F0
111B73.3 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 2.5 VL 72B
F0
72B50.5 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 OpenAI
GPT-OSS 120B
F0
117B78.0 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 NVIDIA
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B
F0
30B22.4 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Alibaba
Qwen3-Coder-Next
F0
80B52.0 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Microsoft
Phi-4-reasoning-plus 14B
F0
14.7B13.7 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Mistral
Devstral Small 1.1
F0
24B18.8 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Z.ai
GLM-5.1
F0
754B480.7 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Mistral AI
Pixtral Large 124B
F0
124B82.7 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Z.ai
GLM-5
F0
744B474.6 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 DeepSeek
DeepSeek V3.2
F0
671B411.5 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 OpenAI
GPT-OSS 20B
F0
21B17.0 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen 3 235B A22B
F0
235B147.9 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Alibaba
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
F0
480B297.4 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 NVIDIA
Nemotron Cascade 2 30B A3B
F0
30B22.9 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Google
Gemma 4 31B
F0
30.7B35.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
MiniMax M2.7
F0
230B145.8 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Mistral
Leanstral 119B A6B
F0
119B83.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 DeepSeek
DeepSeek Coder V2 236B
F0
236B204.3 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 DeepSeek
DeepSeek R1 671B
F0
671B470.6 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 DeepSeek
DeepSeek V3.1 671B
F0
671B470.6 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
moe
👁 Mistral
Ministral 3 14B
F0
14B12.7 GB4 tok/s4K ctx
multimodal
👁 LG AI
EXAONE 4.0 32B
F0
32B25.1 GB2 tok/s4K ctx
dense
👁 Google
Gemma 4 26B A4B
F0
25.2B20.7 GB3 tok/s4K ctx
moe
Image
512×768
~6.2s
S
PixArt-SigmaImage256×256~1m 23sS
FramePack I2VVideo256×256~2m 32s/frameA
SDXL TurboImage256×256~27.5sA
SDXL LightningImage256×256~1m 22sB
Stable Diffusion XL 1.0Image256×256~3m 40sB
Playground v2.5Image256×256~2m 4sB
RealVisXL v5.0Image256×256~4m 7sB
DreamShaper XLImage256×256~4m 7sB
Juggernaut XL v9Image256×256~4m 7sB
Animagine XL 3.1Image256×256~4m 7sB
Pony Diffusion V6 XLImage256×256~4m 7sB
Animagine XL 4.0Image256×256~4m 7sB
Illustrious XLImage256×256~4m 7sB
Wan Video 2.1 1.3BVideo256×256~1m 1s/frameD
Stable Diffusion 3.5 MediumImage256×256~2m 25sD
Flux.2 Klein 4BImage256×256~24.8sD
LTX Video 2BVideo256×256~1m 12s/frameF
KolorsImage256×256~2m 46sF
Stable CascadeImage256×256~3m 27sF
AuraFlow v0.3Image256×256~6m 13sF
Stable Diffusion 3.5 LargeImage256×256~7m 36sF
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large TurboImage256×256~1m 23sF
CogVideoX 2BVideo256×256~1m 12s/frameF
HunyuanVideoVideo256×256~2m 32s/frameF
ChromaImage256×256~1m 23sF
Z-Image TurboImage256×256~1m 26sF
Flux.1 DevImage256×256~6m 13sF
Flux.1 SchnellImage256×256~1m 13sF
LTX Video 13BVideo256×256~2m 32s/frameF
Flux.1 Kontext DevImage256×256~6m 54sF
AnimateDiff v1.5.3Video512×768~37.8s/frameF
Cosmos Diffusion 7BVideo256×256~1m 59s/frameF
CogVideoX 5BVideo256×256~1m 44s/frameF
Wan2.2 TI2V 5BVideo256×256~1m 44s/frameF
Flux.2 Klein 9BImage256×256~41.4sF
Flux.1 Fill DevImage256×256~5m 52sF
Mochi 1 PreviewVideo256×256~2m 17s/frameF
HunyuanVideo 1.5Video256×256~2m 7s/frameF
Helios 14BVideo256×256~2m 37s/frameF
SkyReels V2 14BVideo256×256~2m 37s/frameF
Wan Video 2.1 14BVideo256×256~2m 37s/frameF
Wan Video 2.2 14BVideo256×256~2m 37s/frameF
Qwen ImageImage256×256~2m 19sF
Qwen Image EditImage256×256~2m 19sF
Flux.2 DevImage256×256~65m 18sF
MAGI-1Video256×256~3m 14s/frameF
HunyuanImage 3.0Image256×256~4m 6sF

Image models estimated at 1024×1024 (28 steps, FP16). Video models estimated at 768×512 (25 frames, 30 steps, FP16). Actual performance varies with runtime and system load.

There are 4 upgrade path(s) from RX 590 8GB: RTX 3080 10GB, RX 7700 XT 12GB. Upgrading would unlock larger models and faster inference speeds.

Buying advice

Should you buy RX 590 8GB for local AI?

Usable for local AI with limits

Can run 7 of 50 top models, mostly smaller ones. Larger models need heavy quantization or won't fit.

8.0 GB

VRAM

$279

MSRP

$35/GB

Cost per GB VRAM

Best models for this GPU

What will limit you first

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 upgrade itinerary

Unlocks 33 additional models that do not fit on the current setup.

Want more headroom? RTX 3080 10GB (10.0 GB VRAM) is the next step up.