Snowflake Arctic Embed L needs ~4.0 GB VRAM. GTX 1660 Ti 6GB has 6.0 GB. With F16 quantization, expect ~5 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
Fit status
Runs well
Decode
4.7 tok/s
TTFT
41279 ms
Safe context
512
Memory
4.0 GB / 6.0 GB
This model fits, but memory bandwidth is the part holding decode speed back.
Throughput will feel slow
Estimated decode speed is only 4.7 tok/s, so this is more of a technical fit than a comfortable daily-driver setup.
Older PCIe generation
PCIe 3.0 is workable, but it compounds the penalty when you offload heavily or try to scale across multiple cards.
Prioritize bandwidth, not only capacity
If this workload feels slow, the next useful step is often a GPU tier with materially faster memory bandwidth rather than only a small bump in capacity.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A | Runs well | 4.7 tok/s | 22516 ms | 512 |
| Coding | A | Runs well | 4.7 tok/s | 41279 ms | 512 |
| Agentic Coding | A | Tight fit | 4.7 tok/s | 60043 ms | 512 |
| Reasoning | A | Runs well | 4.7 tok/s | 48785 ms | 512 |
| RAG | A | Tight fit | 4.7 tok/s | 75053 ms | 512 |
How Snowflake Arctic Embed L (0.33500000834465027B params) fits at each quantization level on GTX 1660 Ti 6GB (6.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 0.1 GB | Low | A84 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 0.2 GB | Low | A84 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Snowflake Arctic Embed L on your machine.
Run
ollama run snowflake-arctic-embedYour hardware
| Model | Params | Grade | Decode | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Qwen 3.5 4B | 4B | A | 43.6 tok/s | |
 Phi-4 Mini Reasoning 4B | 3.8B | S | 53.2 tok/s |
Yes, GTX 1660 Ti 6GB can run Snowflake Arctic Embed L with a A grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 4.7 tok/s.
Snowflake Arctic Embed L (0.33500000834465027B parameters) requires approximately 4.0 GB of memory with F16 quantization.
The recommended quantization for Snowflake Arctic Embed L is F16, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On GTX 1660 Ti 6GB, Snowflake Arctic Embed L achieves approximately 4.7 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 41279ms using F16 quantization.
For coding workloads, Snowflake Arctic Embed L on GTX 1660 Ti 6GB receives a A grade with 4.7 tok/s and 512 context.
On GTX 1660 Ti 6GB, Snowflake Arctic Embed L can safely use up to 512 tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 512, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/snowflake-arctic-embed-l-on-gtx-1660-ti-6gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
0.2 GB |
| Medium |
| A84 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 0.2 GB | Medium | A84 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 0.2 GB | High | A84 |
Q6_K | 6 | 0.3 GB | High | A84 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 0.4 GB | Very High | A84 |
F16Best for your GPU | 16 | 0.7 GB | Maximum | S85 |
 Jina Embeddings v3 | 0.57B | A | 8 tok/s |
 BGE M3 | 0.57B | A | 8 tok/s |
Prioritize bandwidth, not only capacity. If this workload feels slow, the next useful step is often a GPU tier with materially faster memory bandwidth rather than only a small bump in capacity.