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Can the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation run Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B?

69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q5_K_M it needs about 24.7 GB of 32.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 116 tok/s.

Best quant
Q5_K_M
Generation speed
116 tok/s
Prompt processing
15,672 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.3 s
Largest safe context
256K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation

On Windows

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

  • One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  • Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.
ollama run nemotron-3.5-lightning:30b
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

On Linux

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

  • One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  • Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.
ollama run nemotron-3.5-lightning:30b
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

Want an agent? Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B supports tool use, so you can pair a llama.cpp or MLX LM server with one of these. Apps that run on this computer come first.

Coding agents

Personal assistants

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 Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B

Recommended for the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation: Q5_K_M. 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 nemotron-3.5-lightning:30b

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q5_K_M file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Lightning-30B-A3B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/unsloth/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Lightning-30B-A3B-GGUF:Q5_K_M

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Lightning-30B-A3B-BF16 (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

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

github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/Nemotron (opens in a new tab)

NVIDIA’s Nemotron repo with recipes for the whole family.

git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/Nemotron

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

How it’s rated

Quality 69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q5_K_M, 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 NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation: 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.31.4 / 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 score86.4 / 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 NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 14.9 GB 32.0 GB 175 tok/s Runs great 50Fair quality (C) · 50 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (IQ2_M) (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 17.7 GB 32.0 GB 153 tok/s Runs great 60Good quality (B) · 60 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (UD-Q3_K_XL) (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 21.5 GB 32.0 GB 131 tok/s Runs great 68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 24.7 GB 32.0 GB 116 tok/s Runs great 69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 28.1 GB 32.0 GB 103 tok/s Runs welltight fit 71Great quality (A) · 71 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (UD-Q6_K_XL) (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 35.7 GB 32.0 GB 52.0 tok/s Runs welloffloads to RAM 72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 65.4 GB 32.0 GB — Won't run 72Great quality (A) · 72 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF · folder (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

Quick answers

How much memory does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B need on the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation 32GB?

At Q5_K_M it needs about 24.7 GB. The NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation 32GB has 32.0 GB usable.

How fast is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B on the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation 32GB?

About 116 tok/s at Q5_K_M, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B should I use on the NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation 32GB?

Q5_K_M. 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.

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