Best Local AI Models for AMD RX 9060 XT (16GB)

The RX 9060 XT 16GB has 16GB of GDDR6 at 320 GB/s. That fits dense models up to 14B at Q4, with an 8B model at est. 45 tok/s, typical error 10% and a 14B model at est. 28 tok/s. Ollama runs it through ROCm on Linux, where the 9060 XT is on its support list; its Windows ROCm list does not include the card, so on Windows Ollama uses its Vulkan backend. This page covers the 16GB card.

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Quick answer

The best local LLM for the RX 9060 XT is Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking (est. 83 tok/s, typical error 25%) on its 16GB VRAM. It uses ~8.1GB of VRAM; the RX 9060 XT handles dense models up to ~14B at Q4. A 14B model at Q4 runs at est. 28 tok/s, typical error 10%. (ModelFit, 2026)

Sizing rule: a Q4 model needs about 0.6 GB of VRAM per billion parameters, and ModelFit budgets 90% of this card's 16GB for weights, context, and KV-cache. The per-size table below uses that same budget. Other strong fits: Gemma 4 12B (12B, ~8GB) and Qwen3.5 9B Instruct (Q8) (9B, ~10.7GB). On this card Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking runs at est. 83 tok/s, typical error 25%. What it will not run: a 32B model does not fit in VRAM alone, so it spills to system RAM over PCIe and slows sharply.

Top pick
Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking
Decode speed
est. 83 tok/s, typical error 25%
VRAM needed
~8.1 GB

Speeds are ModelFit estimates from memory bandwidth and model size, not measured benchmarks. Typical error: the median gap between the ModelFit speed model and measured runs on hardware the model was not fitted on, for this backend and model size.

Cite this page: ModelFit, RX 9060 XT 16GB Local LLM: 14B at est. 28 tok/s, ROCm on Linux, https://modelfit.io/gpu/rx-9060-xt/, updated October 2026, CC BY 4.0.

Specs
VRAM
16 GB GDDR6
Speed (8B Q4)
est. 45 tok/stypical error 10%
Bandwidth
320 GB/s
Architecture
RDNA 4
Max model size
Up to ~14B dense
Compatibility
10 excellent, 0 workable
Table 1

RX 9060 XT estimated tokens/sec by model size

Q4_K_M · ModelFit estimate
Model sizeEst. speedFit on 16GB
7Best. 51 tok/stypical error 10%Fits in VRAM
14Best. 28 tok/stypical error 10%Fits in VRAM
20B MoE (3.6B active)est. 59 tok/stypical error 25%Fits in VRAM
32Best. 3 tok/srough estimate, offload not measuredCPU offload (slow)
35B MoE (3B active)est. 24 tok/srough estimate, offload not measuredCPU offload (slow)
70Best. 1 tok/srough estimate, offload not measuredCPU offload (slow)
120B MoE (5.1B active)est. 15 tok/srough estimate, offload not measuredCPU offload (slow)

ModelFit estimates, not measured benchmarks: decode speed of a generic Q4_K_M model of each size at 4K context on the RX 9060 XT's 320 GB/s bandwidth. MoE rows scale by active parameters (decode reads only the active experts), so a 35B MoE runs far faster than a dense 32B. "CPU offload" sizes exceed the 16GB VRAM; dense models slow to a crawl there, MoE models degrade less because hot experts stay GPU-resident. Offload rows are rough estimates: no measured run covers offload, so they carry no typical error. What typical error means.

Fig. 2

Context costs VRAM too.

Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking loads ~8.1 GB of weights; at 16k context the KV cache adds ~0.2 GB (still fits the ~14 GB usable VRAM), and at 64k it adds ~0.9 GB (still fits).

Weights 8.1 GBKV cache · 16k context 0.2 GBHeadroom 6.1 GBRuntime reserve 1.6 GB

The model leaves about 6.1 GB of the usable VRAM budget free after weights and 16k context.

KV-cache figures assume an fp16 cache, the llama.cpp/Ollama default. Standard GQA models use a size-class estimate (8 KV heads x 128 head dim class); hybrid linear-attention models (Qwen3.5/3.6, Qwen3-Next) use the exact per-token cost from their published config, since only their sparse full-attention layers cache KV. A q8_0 KV cache roughly halves either figure. Estimates, not measurements.

RX 9060 XT VRAM for AI: what actually fits?

ModelFit budgets about 14.4GB of the 16GB for weights and context: 14B models at Q4 (~11GB) fit with room for context, and 20B-class mixture-of-experts models load too. Bandwidth is the trade-off: 320 GB/s sits near the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (288 GB/s) and at half the RX 9070 XT (640 GB/s, est. 79 tok/s, typical error 10% on 8B). Dense 27B and 32B models spill into system RAM.

Table 2

RX 9060 XT vs top GPUs

HardwareMemorySpeedBandwidth
RTX 4060 Ti16 GBest. 43 tok/stypical error 5%288 GB/s
RX 9060 XT16 GBest. 45 tok/stypical error 10%320 GB/s
RTX 5060 Ti16 GBest. 68 tok/stypical error 5%448 GB/s
RX 9070 XT16 GBest. 79 tok/stypical error 10%640 GB/s
RX 7900 XT20 GBest. 91 tok/stypical error 10%800 GB/s

Recommended models

10 models
01

Mellum2.1 12B-A2.5B Thinking

Mellum / 12.1B / Q4_K_M / ~8.1 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 44

Best for: Agentic coding, Small machines·Pop: 76/100

Perf: est. 83 tok/s, typical error 25% · first token ~0.2s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for agentic coding, small machines on RX 9060 XT.

02

Gemma 4 12B

Gemma / 12B / Q4_K_M / ~8 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 44

Best for: Chat, Coding, Multimodal·Pop: 80/100

Perf: est. 32 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~0.6s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for chat, coding, multimodal on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
03

Qwen3.5 9B Instruct (Q8)

Qwen / 9B / Q8_0 / ~10.7 GB

Local OKOKB · 26

Best for: Quality, Coding, Reasoning·Pop: 86/100

Perf: est. 31 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~1.7s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for quality, coding, reasoning on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
04

NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Bolt E4B

Nemotron / 4B / Q4_K_M / ~7.9 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 45

Best for: Voice assistants, Tool calling, Chat·Pop: 75/100

Perf: est. 60 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~0.4s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for voice assistants, tool calling, chat on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
05

Gemma 4 E4B (Q8)

Gemma / 4.5B / Q8_0 / ~7.5 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 48

Best for: On-device, Mobile, Chat·Pop: 82/100

Perf: est. 48 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~1.5s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for on-device, mobile, chat on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
06

Gemma 4 12B (Q8)

Gemma / 12B / Q8_0 / ~12.8 GB

Local OKOKB · 11

Best for: Chat, Coding, Multimodal·Pop: 80/100

Perf: est. 20 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~2.4s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for chat, coding, multimodal on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
07

LFM2 24B-A2B Instruct

LFM2 / 24B / Q4_K_M / ~14 GB

Local OKOKB · 3

Best for: Local AI agents, privacy-first tool calling, MCP workflows·Pop: 80/100

Perf: est. 91 tok/s, typical error 25% · first token ~0.2s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for local ai agents, privacy-first tool calling, mcp workflows on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
08

Qwen3.5 9B Instruct

Qwen / 9B / Q4_K_M / ~7 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 51

Best for: Quality, Coding, Reasoning·Pop: 86/100

Perf: est. 48 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~0.5s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for quality, coding, reasoning on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
09

Ornith 1.0 9B

Ornith / 9B / Q4_K_M / ~5.6 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 61

Best for: Agentic coding on small machines·Pop: 76/100

Perf: est. 48 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~0.5s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for agentic coding on small machines on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified
10

Ministral 3 14B

Mistral / 13.5B / Q4_K_M / ~9.1 GB

Local OKExcellentA · 37

Best for: Chat, Reasoning, Vision·Pop: 74/100

Perf: est. 28 tok/s, typical error 10% · first token ~0.7s

Fits in 16 GB VRAM with room to spare. Best for chat, reasoning, vision on RX 9060 XT.

ollamaregistry-verified

Video and image models on the RX 9060 XT

No stated VRAM figure or published run covers AMD for these models yet. By memory size: video models · image models.

Compatible model families

RX 9060 XT FAQ: common questions

Does Ollama support the RX 9060 XT?

Yes. On Linux, Ollama lists the RX 9060 XT among its ROCm cards and needs the AMD ROCm v7 driver. Its Windows ROCm list does not include the card, so on Windows Ollama runs it through its Vulkan backend.

How much VRAM does the RX 9060 XT 16GB have for LLMs?

It has 16GB of GDDR6 at up to 320 GB/s (AMD specifications). ModelFit budgets about 14.4GB of it for weights and context, enough for dense models up to 14B at Q4 quantization.

RX 9060 XT vs RTX 5060 Ti 16GB for local AI?

Both have 16GB, so they hold the same models. The RTX 5060 Ti streams 448 GB/s against 320 GB/s and runs CUDA, so it is 51% faster on 8B models (est. 68 tok/s, typical error 5% vs est. 45 tok/s, typical error 10%). The 9060 XT runs Ollama and llama.cpp through ROCm or Vulkan.

RX 9060 XT vs RX 9070 XT for local LLMs?

Both have 16GB. The 9070 XT has twice the bandwidth (640 vs 320 GB/s), so it decodes faster on every model both hold: est. 79 tok/s, typical error 10% against est. 45 tok/s on 8B.

How fast is a 27B-class model on the RX 9060 XT?

The RX 9060 XT's 16GB of VRAM cannot fit a 32B model comfortably. The largest size class it fits is 20B MoE (3.6B active), at est. 59 tok/s, typical error 25%. The largest individual model in the catalog that fits is LFM2 24B-A2B Instruct (24B).

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