Solar 7B needs ~9.5 GB VRAM. GTX 1080 Ti 11GB has 11.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~72 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
Tight fit
Decode
71.9 tok/s
TTFT
2693 ms
Safe context
8K
Memory
9.5 GB / 11.0 GB
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
Older PCIe generation
PCIe 3.0 is workable, but it compounds the penalty when you offload heavily or try to scale across multiple cards.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | A | Runs well | 71.9 tok/s | 1469 ms | 8K |
| Coding | A | Tight fit | 71.9 tok/s | 2693 ms | 8K |
| Agentic Coding | B | Very compromised (needs ~0.5 GB host RAM) | 40.1 tok/s | 7023 ms | 8K |
| Reasoning | A | Tight fit | 71.9 tok/s | 3183 ms | 8K |
| RAG | B | Very compromised (needs ~0.5 GB host RAM) | 40.1 tok/s | 8778 ms | 8K |
Inference speed
Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Solar 7B at Q4_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~98 tok/s. Speed is memory-bandwidth bound, so cards that fit the whole model in VRAM run far faster than ones that offload to system RAM.
| GPU / Mac | Memory | Quant | Speed (tok/s) | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 RTX 5090 32GB | 32 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
| RTX 4090 24GB | 24 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
| RTX 4080 Super 16GB | 16 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
| RTX 3090 24GB | 24 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
RX 7900 XTX 24GB | 24 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB | 256 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB | 128 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB | 128 GB | Q4_K_M | 98.0 | Fits |
| RTX 4070 12GB | 12 GB | Q4_K_M | 95.2 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB | 128 GB | Q4_K_M | 94.4 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q4_K_M | 94.4 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q4_K_M | 60.4 | Fits |
| RTX 3060 12GB | 12 GB | Q4_K_M | 59.8 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q4_K_M | 55.4 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB | 48 GB | Q4_K_M | 48.7 | Fits |
| RTX 4060 8GB | 8 GB | Q4_K_M | 27.9 | Heavy offload |
Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q4_K_M; real tokens/sec varies with prompt length, context, batch size, and runtime build. Prompt processing (prefill) is faster than the decode figures shown here.
How Solar 7B (7B params) fits at each quantization level on GTX 1080 Ti 11GB (11.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 2.7 GB | Low | A70 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 3.4 GB | Low | A71 |
NVFP4 | 4 | 3.9 GB | Medium | A72 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 4.3 GB | Medium | A73 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 5.0 GB | High | A73 |
Q6_K | 6 | 5.7 GB | High | A73 |
Q8_0Best for your GPU | 8 | 7.5 GB | Very High | A72 |
F16 | 16 | 14.3 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Copy-paste commands to run Solar 7B on your machine.
Run
lms load Solar-7B && lms server startYour hardware
| Model | Params | Grade | Decode | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Qwen 3.5 9B | 9B | S | 55.9 tok/s | |
| Qwen 3 8B | 8B | S | 62.9 tok/s | |
| Nemotron Nano 8B | 8B | S | 62.9 tok/s | |
 InternVL2 8B | 8B | A | 62.9 tok/s | |
 Ministral 3 8B | 8B | A | 62.9 tok/s |
Yes, GTX 1080 Ti 11GB can run Solar 7B with a A grade (Tight fit). Expected decode speed: 71.9 tok/s.
Solar 7B (7B parameters) requires approximately 9.5 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Solar 7B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On GTX 1080 Ti 11GB, Solar 7B achieves approximately 71.9 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 2693ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Solar 7B on GTX 1080 Ti 11GB receives a A grade with 71.9 tok/s and 8K context.
On GTX 1080 Ti 11GB, Solar 7B can safely use up to 8K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 8K, 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/solar-7b-on-gtx-1080-ti-11gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview: