Local AI

Can RTX 3090 24GB Run Llama 3.1 8B? (Tested, 5GB VRAM Needed)

Can the RTX 3090 24GB run Llama 3.1 8B locally? Yes — runs at Q4 and Q8 quality. See VRAM requirements, performance estimates, and the best quantization level for your setup.

📍 Part of the Local LLMs in 2026 guide

✅ Yes — runs at Q4 and Q8 quality
Llama 3.1 8B needs 5 GB VRAM at Q4. The RTX 3090 24GB has 24 GB.

● Llama 3.1 8B (Meta) is a 8B parameter model used for General chat, coding, instruction following. Strong all-rounder, comparable to GPT-3.5.

VRAM Requirements

Quantization	VRAM Needed	RTX 3090 24GB
Q4_K_M (recommended)	5 GB	✅
Q8_0 (high quality)	8.5 GB	✅

Expected Performance

Running Llama 3.1 8B at Q4 on the RTX 3090 24GB, expect approximately ~60 tokens/sec with Ollama or llama.cpp. That’s fast enough for interactive chat — you’ll see responses streaming in real-time.

Headroom: With 5 GB used out of 24 GB, you have 19 GB free for KV cache (context window). At 4K context, this is plenty. At 32K+ context you may need to reduce batch size.

About the RTX 3090 24GB

Pros: 24GB sweet spot for 27-34B models, great used value

Cons: Power hungry (350W), loud, large card

Price: ~$800 used — Check current price on Amazon →

Try It Yourself

🎯 LLM Hardware Checker

Select your exact GPU + RAM and see ALL models you can run.

💾 VRAM Calculator

Pick any model, see exact VRAM at Q4/Q5/Q8/FP16 with context scaling.