CanMyPCRunAILocal AI compatibility

AMD · 16GB VRAM

What AI models can a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB run?

A Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB has 16GB of VRAM. Checked against 225 models from the Ollama library, 178 have good/excellent reference fits on the GPU at 4K context and 25 more run with part of the model in system RAM.

178

run well

25

with trade-offs

225

builds evaluated

Which Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB does this cover?

This is the 16 GB RX 9060 XT, not the 8 GB model or the LP variant. Its ROCm path is documented for Linux; Windows uses the supported Vulkan route in this reference.

Architecture
RDNA 4
Memory
16 GB GDDR6
Interface
128-bit
Memory bandwidth
320 GB/s

AMD’s published memory bandwidth, up to this value. The 9070 XT has the same capacity with a wider interface. Bandwidth source. Bandwidth is not an input to the memory-fit engine.

Ollama acceleration by operating system

  • Windows: vulkan when the corresponding driver/backend is installed.
  • Linux: vulkan, rocm when the corresponding driver/backend is installed.
  • ROCm support requires the driver stack documented by Ollama. A vendor logo or installed DLL alone does not establish that this card is supported.
  • Confirm the loaded model's processor allocation with ollama ps. Intel Macs use the Ollama CPU path; Apple Silicon uses its integrated Metal GPU.

Hardware specifications · Ollama support table · reviewed 2026-09-15.

Compare Radeon RX 9070 XT (16 GB). The same capacity can give the same fit result; runtime support and measured speed are separate questions.

Four builds to compare by task

Editorial examples chosen for their documented tasks, all Q4_K_M at 4,096 tokens. Check the verdict before downloading. These are estimates, not benchmark rankings.

Short conversations and summaries

llama3.2:3b

A small instruction-tuned model for trying local chat with more memory headroom. Review summaries against the source text.

Task and build source · Catalog checked 2026-10-13

Excellent fit

Est. memory 2.9 GB · high confidence

Model fully fits in usable GPU VRAM.

Speed ceiling: up to ~158 tokens/s (theoretical, from memory bandwidth; real speed is lower and unmeasured)

ollama run llama3.2:3b

General instruction following

llama3.1:8b

An 8B instruction-tuned alternative to compare on your own prompts. It needs more memory than the 3B example and can still give incorrect answers.

Task and build source · Catalog checked 2026-10-13

Excellent fit

Est. memory 5.8 GB · high confidence

Model fully fits in usable GPU VRAM.

Speed ceiling: up to ~65 tokens/s (theoretical, from memory bandwidth; real speed is lower and unmeasured)

ollama run llama3.1:8b

Code explanation and editing

qwen2.5-coder:7b

A code-focused instruct build. Review generated changes and run your tests; a memory fit is not evidence that its code is correct.

Task and build source · Catalog checked 2026-10-13

Excellent fit

Est. memory 5.3 GB · high confidence

Model fully fits in usable GPU VRAM.

Speed ceiling: up to ~68 tokens/s (theoretical, from memory bandwidth; real speed is lower and unmeasured)

ollama run qwen2.5-coder:7b

A larger general-purpose comparison

qwen2.5:14b

A 14B instruct build for comparing answers when memory allows. Larger size does not establish better results for every task.

Task and build source · Catalog checked 2026-10-13

Excellent fit

Est. memory 10.2 GB · high confidence

Model fully fits in usable GPU VRAM.

Speed ceiling: up to ~36 tokens/s (theoretical, from memory bandwidth; real speed is lower and unmeasured)

ollama run qwen2.5:14b

After opening Ollama's prompt, enter /set parameter num_ctx 4096 to match this calculation, within the model's supported maximum. Install a current Ollama release that supports the build. Setup and troubleshooting.

Models that fit — largest memory first — for a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB

Largest first — these have good/excellent reference fits with 16GB of VRAM at 4K context. A good fit can include a small estimated CPU offload. These are technical defaults, not a quality ranking.

Models that run well on a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
ModelBuildMemory neededVerdict
solar-proUpstagesolar-pro:22bQ4_K_M~15.0 GBGood fit
mistral-smallMistral AImistral-small:22b-instruct-2409-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~14.7 GBGood fit
codestralMistral AIcodestral:22b-v0.1-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~14.7 GBGood fit
gpt-ossOpenAIgpt-oss:20bMXFP4~14.5 GBGood fit
gpt-oss-safeguardOpenAIgpt-oss-safeguard:20bMXFP4~14.5 GBGood fit
phi4-reasoningMicrosoftphi4-reasoning:14bQ4_K_M~12.4 GBGood fit
deepseek-coder-v2DeepSeek AIdeepseek-coder-v2:16b-lite-base-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.9 GBGood fit
deepseek-v2DeepSeek AIdeepseek-v2:16b-lite-chat-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.9 GBGood fit
everythinglmOllama Libraryeverythinglm:13b-16k-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.4 GBExcellent fit
nexusravenOllama Librarynexusraven:13b-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.4 GBExcellent fit
open-orca-platypus2Ollama Libraryopen-orca-platypus2:13b-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.4 GBExcellent fit
codeupOllama Librarycodeup:13b-llama2-chat-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.4 GBExcellent fit
wizard-vicunaOllama Librarywizard-vicuna:13b-q4_K_MQ4_K_MMemory scenario exceeds documented maximum of 2,048 tokens.~11.4 GBExcellent fit
wizardlm-uncensoredOllama Librarywizardlm-uncensored:13b-llama2-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~11.4 GBExcellent fit
clef-flashOllama Libraryclef-flash:9bQ8_0~11.0 GBExcellent fit
phi4Microsoftphi4:14bQ4_K_M~10.3 GBExcellent fit
llama3.2-visionMeta AIllama3.2-vision:11bQ4_K_M~8.9 GBExcellent fit
mistral-nemoMistral AImistral-nemo:12b-instruct-2407-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~8.5 GBExcellent fit
falcon2TIIfalcon2:11b-q4_K_MQ4_K_MMemory scenario exceeds documented maximum of 2,048 tokens.~8.2 GBExcellent fit
llama-proMeta AIllama-pro:8b-text-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~8.0 GBExcellent fit
nous-hermes2Ollama Librarynous-hermes2:10.7b-solar-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~7.6 GBExcellent fit
solarUpstagesolar:10.7b-text-v1-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~7.6 GBExcellent fit
deepseek-ocrDeepSeek AIdeepseek-ocr:3bF16~7.4 GBExcellent fit
olmo2Allen Institute for AIolmo2:7bQ4_K_M~6.9 GBExcellent fit
olmo-3Allen Institute for AIolmo-3:7b-instruct-q4_K_MQ4_K_M~6.9 GBExcellent fit

Showing the 25 largest of 178 models that run well.

How these results were calculated

Each model is evaluated at 4K context against 16GB of VRAM, counting model weights, KV cache, compute buffers and runtime overhead, minus a reserve for the display and operating system. Download sizes come from the official Ollama registry.

Reference scenario: Windows 11, 32GB of system RAM, an illustrative 8-core/16-thread CPU and 500GB free disk. Available RAM, driver version and free VRAM are unknown; the engine applies reserves. Supported GPU drivers/backends are assumed installed. Your own machine may differ — RAM, free disk space and whether an acceleration backend is actually installed all change the answer, which is what the PC scan measures directly.

Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB local AI — frequently asked questions

How many AI models can a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB run?
Out of 225 models in the Ollama library, 178 have good/excellent reference fits on a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB's 16GB of VRAM at 4K context, and a further 25 run with part of the model offloaded to system RAM, more slowly.
What is the largest AI model a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB can run?
The heaviest build that has a good/excellent reference fit is solar-pro:22b (22B parameters), needing about 15.0 GB of memory from a 12.4 GB download.
Is 16GB of VRAM enough for local AI?
16GB is enough for 178 of the 225 builds evaluated here, under the stated reference assumptions. Fit alone does not tell you whether a build is suitable for chat, coding or embeddings. Very large models still need either partial CPU offload or a card with more memory.

Compare other graphics cards