What can the GTX 980 run?
With 4 GB, 1 of 12 popular open models fit. The best pick is Qwen3 4B at about 49 tok/s, faster than you can read.
ollama run qwen3:4bFirst time? Install Ollama, then paste that into a terminal. Is this your machine? Check it on the homepage.
Every model the GTX 980 can run
- Qwen3 4BQuick everyday chat and summaries~49 tok/sRuns great
qwen3:4b - Qwen3 8BA solid all-rounder for chat and writingneeds 7 GBToo big
qwen3:8b - Gemma 3 12BReads images as well as textneeds 10 GBToo big
gemma3:12b - Qwen3 14BNoticeably smarter at reasoning and codeneeds 11 GBToo big
qwen3:14b - gpt-oss 20BOpenAI's open model. Fast, strong reasoningneeds 16 GBToo big
gpt-oss:20b - Gemma 3 27BGoogle's best open model for its sizeneeds 19 GBToo big
gemma3:27b - Qwen3 30B-A3B30B smarts at small-model speedneeds 21 GBToo big
qwen3:30b - Qwen3 32BStrong coding and long answersneeds 22 GBToo big
qwen3:32b - Llama 3.3 70BClose to the big cloud modelsneeds 45 GBToo big
llama3.3:70b - gpt-oss 120BOpenAI's largest open modelneeds 67 GBToo big
gpt-oss:120b - Qwen3 235B-A22BAlibaba's flagship open model, for multi-GPU rigsneeds 144 GBToo big
qwen3:235b - DeepSeek R1 671BThe full DeepSeek R1, for the biggest rigsneeds 406 GBToo big
deepseek-r1:671b
Can the GTX 980 run it?
Can the GTX 980 run Qwen3 4B?
Yes. Qwen3 4B needs about 4 GB and the GTX 980 has 4 GB of VRAM. Expect about 49 tok/s, faster than you can read.
Can the GTX 980 run Qwen3 8B?
No. Qwen3 8B needs about 7 GB and the GTX 980 has at most 4 GB of VRAM. Ollama can still start it by putting part of the model in system RAM, but it runs several times slower. The most capable model it runs well is Qwen3 4B, at about 49 tok/s.
Real runs on the GTX 980
Loading measured runs…
Generating a token reads the model's active weights from memory once, so speed is roughly memory bandwidth (224 GB/s) divided by the active weight size, with efficiency calibrated on our own rack. Sizes are Ollama's default 4-bit downloads plus about 1.2 GB for context. Real results are usually within about a third. Measured runs are on the leaderboard.
The Used desktop + RTX 3060 12 GB runs Qwen3 14B at about 21 tok/s, from $600 used.