Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct on NVIDIA A800 40GB Active

Can the NVIDIA A800 40GB Active run Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q6_K it needs about 32.1 GB of 40.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 39.7 tok/s.

Best quant: Q6_K
Generation speed: 39.7 tok/s
Prompt processing: 421 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 2.4 s
Largest safe context: 37K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA A800 40GB Active

On Linux

vLLM

Inference server · runs on vLLM

The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.

vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct

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

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 qwen3-vl:32b

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? Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct 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 Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct

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 qwen3-vl:32b

Quantized files · GGUF

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

huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/Qwen/Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-VL-32B-Instruct (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

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

How it’s rated

Quality 77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (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 NVIDIA A800 40GB Active: 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.	34.7 / 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.	14.9 / 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	89.7 / 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 A800 40GB Active

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	18.1 GB	40.0 GB	94.0 tok/s	Runs great	54Fair quality (C) · 54 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	21.1 GB	40.0 GB	74.0 tok/s	Runs great	65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	25.1 GB	40.0 GB	57.2 tok/s	Runs great	74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 87/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	28.4 GB	40.0 GB	47.3 tok/s	Runs great	75Great quality (A) · 75 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	32.1 GB	40.0 GB	39.7 tok/s	Runs great	77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	40.1 GB	40.0 GB	27.3 tok/s	Runs welloffloads to RAM	78Great quality (A) · 78 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`	71.5 GB	40.0 GB	—	Won't run	78Great quality (A) · 78 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 10/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · part 1 of 2 (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

77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q6_K · 45.8 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Q3_K_M · 44.5 tok/s · Runs great
65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Q3_K_M · 48.0 tok/s · Runs great
65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q3_K_M · 39.3 tok/s · Runs great
77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 83/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q6_K · 45.8 tok/s · Runs great
74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (64 GB) Q4_K_M · 17.3 tok/s · Runs well

Quick answers

How much memory does Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct need on the NVIDIA A800 40GB Active?

At Q6_K it needs about 32.1 GB. The NVIDIA A800 40GB Active has 40.0 GB usable.

How fast is Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct on the NVIDIA A800 40GB Active?

About 39.7 tok/s at Q6_K, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Qwen3-VL 32B Instruct should I use on the NVIDIA A800 40GB Active?

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.