Can the AMD Radeon RX 9070 run Gemma 2 9B IT?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q6_K it needs about 10.6 GB of 16.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 50.8 tok/s.

Best quant: Q6_K
Generation speed: 50.8 tok/s
Prompt processing: 4,851 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 8K

Best app to run it on the AMD Radeon RX 9070

On Windows

Lemonade

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, ONNX Runtime GenAI (Ryzen AI NPU)

AMD’s own app: llama.cpp tuned for Radeon on Vulkan and ROCm.

lemonade pull bartowski/gemma-2-9b-it-GGUF:Q6_K

LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.

On Linux

Lemonade

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, ONNX Runtime GenAI (Ryzen AI NPU)

AMD’s own app: llama.cpp tuned for Radeon on Vulkan and ROCm.

lemonade pull bartowski/gemma-2-9b-it-GGUF:Q6_K

LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
Ollama One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Gemma 2 9B IT

Recommended for the AMD Radeon RX 9070: Q6_K. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run gemma2:9b-instruct-q6_K

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q6_K file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/bartowski/gemma-2-9b-it-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/bartowski/gemma-2-9b-it-GGUF:Q6_K

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Google, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/google/gemma-2-9b-it (opens in a new tab)

Free Hugging Face account needed: request access on the model page, and Google approves it (usually within minutes to a few hours).

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from Google. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/google-deepmind/gemma (opens in a new tab)

Google DeepMind’s official Gemma library.

git clone https://github.com/google-deepmind/gemma

Links checked 3 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q6_K, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great: How well it runs on the AMD Radeon RX 9070: speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.	22.3 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.	25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	15.0 / 15
Match score	77.3 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the AMD Radeon RX 9070

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	6.7 GB	16.0 GB	120 tok/s	Runs great	35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	7.5 GB	16.0 GB	94.7 tok/s	Runs great	42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	8.6 GB	16.0 GB	73.2 tok/s	Runs great	47Fair quality (C) · 47 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	9.6 GB	16.0 GB	60.5 tok/s	Runs great	48Fair quality (C) · 48 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	10.6 GB	16.0 GB	50.8 tok/s	Runs great	49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	12.8 GB	16.0 GB	37.3 tok/s	Runs great	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	21.5 GB	16.0 GB	5.4 tok/s	Slowoffloads to RAM	50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 53/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Q8_0 · 45.4 tok/s · Runs great
50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Q8_0 · 49.8 tok/s · Runs great
50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Q8_0 · 60.6 tok/s · Runs great
50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Q8_0 · 64.9 tok/s · Runs great
50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 F16 · 55.9 tok/s · Runs great
49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Q6_K · 50.8 tok/s · Runs great

Quick answers

How much memory does Gemma 2 9B IT need on the RX 9070 16GB?

At Q6_K it needs about 10.6 GB. The RX 9070 16GB has 16.0 GB usable.

How fast is Gemma 2 9B IT on the RX 9070 16GB?

About 50.8 tok/s at Q6_K, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Gemma 2 9B IT should I use on the RX 9070 16GB?

Q6_K. Of the versions that fit, it is the one that runs best; when two run equally well, the check prefers the higher-rated one.

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.