Can Ternary Bonsai 27B run on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB?

Q: What should I upgrade first if Ternary Bonsai 27B feels slow on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB?

Remove offload with more accelerator memory. Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.

BARELY — Tight on Memory

A70Great

Estimated from fit model

Ternary Bonsai 27B needs ~13.1 GB VRAM. RTX 2080 Ti 11GB has 11.0 GB. With Q2_0_G128 quantization, expect ~20 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: MediumStack: StandardBottleneck: Host offload

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q2_0_G128 (Low quality) — 10.2 GB, 43.3 tok/s, Tight fit

10.2 GB required11.0 GB available

93% VRAM used

Fit status

Tight fit

Decode

43.3 tok/s

TTFT

4469 ms

Safe context

29K

Memory

10.2 GB / 11.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights7.2 GB

KV Cache1.0 GB

Runtime0.9 GB

Headroom1.1 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsTernary Bonsai 27B on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>Write a Python function to sort a list
Here's a Python function that sorts a list using quicksort:

def quicksort(arr):
    if len(arr) <= 1:
        return arr
    pivot = arr[len(arr) // 2]
    left   = [x for x in arr if x < pivot]
    middle = [x for x in arr if x == pivot]
    right  = [x for x in arr if x > pivot]
    return quicksort(left) + middle + quicksort(right)

# Example usage
numbers = [3, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2, 1]
print(quicksort(numbers))  # [1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10]

The algorithm picks a pivot, partitions the list into smaller, equal, and larger elements, then recursively sorts each partition and concatenates the results.
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>Now add type hints and a docstring
def quicksort(arr: list[int]) -> list[int]:
    """Sort a list using the quicksort algorithm.

    Args:
        arr: List of integers to sort.

    Returns:
        A new sorted list.
    """
    if len(arr) <= 1:
        return arr
    pivot = arr[len(arr) // 2]
    left   = [x for x in arr if x < pivot]
    middle = [x for x in arr if x == pivot]
    right  = [x for x in arr if x > pivot]
    return quicksort(left) + middle + quicksort(right)

Added type hints for the input and return type, plus a Google-style docstring.
Estimated: 43.3 tok/s decode · 4.5s TTFT (warm) · 108 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.

CPU or host-memory offload is active

About 20% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.

Very little memory headroom

You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.

Older PCIe generation

PCIe 3.0 is workable, but it compounds the penalty when you offload heavily or try to scale across multiple cards.

Best improvement path

Remove offload with more accelerator memory

Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.

Buy headroom, not only minimum fit

A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.

Increase host RAM if you keep offloading

This setup may need roughly {ram} GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	S	Runs with offload	28.2 tok/s	3739 ms	7K
Coding	A	Very compromised	19.8 tok/s	9767 ms	7K
Agentic Coding	F	Too heavy	11.2 tok/s	25183 ms	7K
Reasoning	A	Very compromised	19.8 tok/s	11542 ms	7K
RAG	F	Too heavy	11.2 tok/s	31478 ms	7K

Inference speed

Ternary Bonsai 27B inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Ternary Bonsai 27B at Q2_0_G128 across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 4080 Super 16GB at ~87 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 4080 Super 16GB	16 GB	Q2_0_G128	87.2	Fits
RTX 5090 32GB	32 GB	Q2_0_G128	76.2	Fits

Quantization options

How Ternary Bonsai 27B (27B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB (11.0 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q1_0_G128	1.125	3.9 GB	Very Low	S90
Q2_0_G128Best for your GPU	1.71	7.2 GB	Low	S89

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Ternary Bonsai 27B on your machine.

Run

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
  --hf-repo "prism-ml/Ternary-Bonsai-27B-gguf" \
  --hf-file "Ternary-Bonsai-27B-gguf-Q2_0_G128.gguf" \
  -c 4096 -ngl 99

Frequently asked questions

Can RTX 2080 Ti 11GB run Ternary Bonsai 27B?

Yes, RTX 2080 Ti 11GB can run Ternary Bonsai 27B with a A grade (Very compromised). Expected decode speed: 19.8 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Ternary Bonsai 27B need?

Ternary Bonsai 27B (27B parameters) requires approximately 13.1 GB of memory with Q2_0_G128 quantization.

What is the best quantization for Ternary Bonsai 27B?

The recommended quantization for Ternary Bonsai 27B is Q2_0_G128, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Ternary Bonsai 27B run at on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB?

On RTX 2080 Ti 11GB, Ternary Bonsai 27B achieves approximately 19.8 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 9767ms using Q2_0_G128 quantization.

Can RTX 2080 Ti 11GB run Ternary Bonsai 27B for coding?

For coding workloads, Ternary Bonsai 27B on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB receives a A grade with 19.8 tok/s and 7K context.

What context window can Ternary Bonsai 27B use on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB?

On RTX 2080 Ti 11GB, Ternary Bonsai 27B can safely use up to 7K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 262K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

What should I upgrade first if Ternary Bonsai 27B feels slow on RTX 2080 Ti 11GB?

See all results for RTX 2080 Ti 11GB See all hardware for Ternary Bonsai 27B

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