Home / Can I run it? / Qwen3-32B / Qwen3-32B on an RTX 3090

Yes, but it is tight. Qwen3-32B at Q4_K_M needs about 23.8 GB, and the GeForce RTX 3090 has 24.0 GB usable at a ~4k context.

Can I run Qwen3-32B on an RTX 3090?

Qwen3-32B at Q4_K_M needs about 23.8 GB, and the GeForce RTX 3090 has 24.0 GB usable. That figure is 24 GB of VRAM on the spec sheet, of which 24.0 GB is usable for weights and cache, at 936 GB/s memory bandwidth. Alibaba’s dense 32B Qwen3, a common “best quality that still fits a 24 GB card” pick. These are estimates from our formula, not measured benchmarks.

Quant that fits

Q4_K_M Fits, short context only

Memory needed

23.8 GB at Q4_K_M, ~4k context

Usable VRAM

24.0 GB of 24 GB VRAM

Est. tokens/sec

28–40 estimate

Qwen3-32B · GeForce RTX 3090 · Everything this machine runs · Q4 vs Q8 vs FP16

Memory at each quant

Estimated tokens per second

Estimate: 28–40 tokens/sec at Q4_K_M. This is a bandwidth-derived range, not a bench. Efficiency is a 60–85% GPU band from How we calculate.

Context headroom

At Q4_K_M, this machine has headroom out to about 4k tokens under our KV estimate. Longer chats need more memory for the cache. Figures assume an FP16 KV cache.

From the model’s config. Try other sizes in the VRAM calculator or see the context length guide.

What to do instead

• Run Gemma 4 31B instead (22.8 GB at Q4). It is a different model, not a drop-in, but it does fit this machine.
• Q8_0 needs 41.0 GB and does not fit here. The Mac mini M5 Pro 64GB has 48.0 GB usable, enough for Q8.
• See the best GPU for this model family and the Qwen3-32B model page.

Other hardware for Qwen3-32B

• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 3060 12GBWon’t fit
• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 3070 TiWon’t fit
• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 3080Won’t fit
• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 4060 Ti 16GBWon’t fit
• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 4070 Ti SuperWon’t fit
• Qwen3-32B on an RTX 4090Tight

Other models on an RTX 3090

• Qwen3-30B-A3B on an RTX 3090Tight
• Qwen3.8-27B on an RTX 3090Fits
• Gemma 3 27B on an RTX 3090Fits
• Gemma 4 31B on an RTX 3090Tight
• gpt-oss-20b on an RTX 3090Fits
• Mistral Small 24B on an RTX 3090Fits