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Qwen3.5 9B vs Qwen3 8B: which runs better locally?

Qwen3.5 9B needs about 7.0 GB at Q4 with 8K context and fits fully on 36 of 40 GPUs. Qwen3 8B needs 6.4 GB and fits on 36. On cards that run both, Qwen3 8B is about 9% faster.

Model

VerdictQwen3 8B runs faster at a similar size

Qwen3.5 9B needs about 7.0 GB at Q4 with 8K context and fits fully on 36 of 40 GPUs. Qwen3 8B needs 6.4 GB and fits on 36. On cards that run both, Qwen3 8B is about 9% faster.

Qwen3.5 9BChat, Coding, Vision

Parameters9.4B

Memory at Q4, 8K7.0 GB

Memory at Q8, 8K11.8 GB

GPUs that run it fully36 / 40

Cheapest desktop cardRTX 3050 (8 GB)

Qwen3 8BChat, Coding, Reasoning

Parameters8.2B

Memory at Q4, 8K6.4 GB

Memory at Q8, 8K10.7 GB

GPUs that run it fully36 / 40

Cheapest desktop cardRTX 3050 (8 GB)

Each GPU at 8K context with the best quantization that fits. Offload assumes 32 GB of system RAM. Green marks the better result. Rows where the two differ come first.

GPU	Qwen3.5 9B	Qwen3 8B
RTX 5090 32 GB	Runs~120 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~130 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4090 24 GB	Runs~66 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~75 tok/sQ8_0
RX 7900 XTX 24 GB	Runs~63 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~72 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 3090 / 3090 Ti 24 GB	Runs~61 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~70 tok/sQ8_0
RX 7900 XT 20 GB	Runs~52 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~60 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 5080 16 GB	Runs~63 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~72 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB	Runs~59 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~67 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4080 / 4080 Super 16 GB	Runs~48 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~55 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4070 Ti Super 16 GB	Runs~44 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~50 tok/sQ8_0
RX 9070 XT 16 GB	Runs~42 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~48 tok/sQ8_0
RX 7800 XT 16 GB	Runs~41 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~47 tok/sQ8_0
Arc A770 16 GB	Runs~37 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~42 tok/sQ8_0
RX 6800 XT 16 GB	Runs~33 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~38 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB	Runs~29 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~34 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	Runs~19 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~22 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 5070 12 GB	Runs~57 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~50 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4070 / 4070 Super 12 GB	Runs~43 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~38 tok/sQ8_0
Arc B580 12 GB	Runs~39 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~34 tok/sQ8_0
RX 7700 XT 12 GB	Runs~36 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~32 tok/sQ8_0
RX 6700 XT 12 GB	Runs~32 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~29 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 3060 12 GB	Runs~30 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~27 tok/sQ8_0
GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB	Runs~41 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~47 tok/sQ6_K
RTX 3080 10 GB	Runs~74 tok/sQ5_K_M	Runs~74 tok/sQ6_K
Arc A750 8 GB	Runs~60 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~69 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB	Runs~53 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~60 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 5060 8 GB	Runs~53 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~60 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 3070 / 3070 Ti 8 GB	Runs~53 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~60 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB	Runs~53 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~60 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB	Runs~34 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~39 tok/sQ4_K_M
RX 7600 8 GB	Runs~34 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~39 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 4060 8 GB	Runs~32 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~37 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 3050 8 GB	Runs~26 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~30 tok/sQ4_K_M
GTX 1660 / 1660 Super 6 GB	Offload~6.0 tok/sQ4_K_M	Offload~6.8 tok/sQ4_K_M
GTX 1650 4 GB	Offload~4.2 tok/sQ4_K_M	Offload~4.6 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 4090 Laptop 16 GB	Runs~38 tok/sQ8_0	Runs~43 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4080 Laptop 12 GB	Runs~36 tok/sQ6_K	Runs~32 tok/sQ8_0
RTX 4070 Laptop 8 GB	Runs~30 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~34 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 4060 Laptop 8 GB	Runs~30 tok/sQ4_K_M	Runs~34 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 3060 Laptop 6 GB	Offload~6.0 tok/sQ4_K_M	Offload~6.8 tok/sQ4_K_M
RTX 4050 Laptop 6 GB	Offload~4.0 tok/sQ4_K_M	Offload~4.4 tok/sQ4_K_M

Which should you run?

See every result on its own page: Qwen3.5 9B and Qwen3 8B.

Questions

Is Qwen3.5 9B or Qwen3 8B better?

Qwen3 8B runs faster at a similar size. Qwen3.5 9B needs about 7.0 GB at Q4 with 8K context and fits fully on 36 of 40 GPUs. Qwen3 8B needs 6.4 GB and fits on 36. On cards that run both, Qwen3 8B is about 9% faster. The right pick depends on what you use it for: compare the strengths listed on each model's page.

Which needs less VRAM, Qwen3.5 9B or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3.5 9B needs about 7.0 GB at Q4 with 8K context, Qwen3 8B about 6.4 GB. At Q8 it is 12 GB versus 11 GB.

Can I run Qwen3.5 9B and Qwen3 8B on a 12 GB GPU?

On an RTX 3060 12 GB, Qwen3.5 9B runs fully at Q6_K (about 30 tokens per second) and Qwen3 8B runs fully at Q8_0 (about 27 tokens per second).

More comparisons

Qwen3 8B vs Llama 3.1 8BModel comparison Qwen3 14B vs Gemma 4 12BModel comparison gpt-oss 20B vs Qwen3 30B-A3B (MoE)Model comparison Qwen3 30B-A3B (MoE) vs Qwen3 32BModel comparison Qwen3.6 35B-A3B (MoE) vs Qwen3 30B-A3B (MoE)Model comparison Gemma 4 31B vs Qwen3.6 27BModel comparison

Estimates from memory size and bandwidth at 8K context. Real speed varies with software, drivers and settings.