The best local AI on a AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX · 24GB VRAM right now is DeepSeek-R1 (distill) (14B @ Q3_K_M, ~45–75 tok/s). Full ranking below — capability × real speed on this hardware, never sponsored.
| # | model | best fit | verdict | speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DeepSeek-R1 (distill) | 14B Q3_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 45–75 tok/s |
| 2 | Qwen3 | 30B-A3B (MoE) Q4_K_M | ✅ Runs (tight) | 130–220 tok/s |
| 3 | Qwen2.5 | 14B Q3_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 45–75 tok/s |
| 4 | Gemma 3 | 27B Q3_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 25–40 tok/s |
| 5 | Mistral Small 3 | 24B Q4_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 25–40 tok/s |
| 6 | Gemma 2 | 27B Q3_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 25–40 tok/s |
| 7 | Gemma 4 | 12B Q8_0 | ✅ Runs comfortably | 25–40 tok/s |
| 8 | Llama 3.1 | 8B Q8_0 | ✅ Runs comfortably | 40–70 tok/s |
| 9 | Phi-4 | 14B Q3_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 45–75 tok/s |
| 10 | Mistral Nemo | 12B Q5_K_M | ✅ Runs comfortably | 40–65 tok/s |
| 11 | Mistral 7B | 7B Q8_0 | ✅ Runs comfortably | 45–75 tok/s |
| 12 | Yi 1.5 | 34B Q3_K_M | ✅ Runs (tight) | 20–35 tok/s |
Rankings use the same GQA-aware fit + bandwidth-calibrated speed math as the CLI — no sponsorships, no affiliate re-sorting, ever.
Different machine? Apple M1 · 8GB · Apple M1 Pro · 16GB · Apple M2 · 16GB · Apple M3 Pro · 18GB · Apple M2 Pro · 32GB · Apple M4 Pro · 48GB
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