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Best LLM for Radeon RX 9070 (16 GB) in 2026

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Ranking updated on 09/10/2026

The Radeon RX 9070 (16 GB GDDR6, 644 GB/s) is the 9070 XT’s younger sibling. Same VRAM and bandwidth, ~10% less powerful. ~€550 new, an excellent entry-level-to-midrange AMD card.

Offers and alternatives for local AI

Radeon RX 9070 : purchasing alternative available for local AI — Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB :

Why this choice? Our complete guide to Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB →

Which PC should you choose for your budget? Our picks from €800 to €3,500 →

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Ranking

1

🇨🇳 Qwen 3 14B

Alibaba · 14B parameters · Apache 2.0 · 131,072 tokens ctx

Dense 14B with hybrid thinking. Equals Qwen 2.5 32B Based on STEM/code.

Why this ranking Dense 14B with hybrid thinking. Equals Qwen 2.5 32B Based on STEM/code.
ollama run qwen3:14b
On Radeon RX 9070
Q8
16 GB · 6 tok/s
2

🇺🇸 Phi-4 Reasoning 14B

Microsoft · 14B parameters · MIT · 32,768-token context

MIT 14B reasoner. Beats R1-Distill-Llama-70B on AIME/GPQA with 50× fewer parameters.

Why this ranking MIT 14B reasoner. Beats R1-Distill-Llama-70B on AIME/GPQA with 50× fewer parameters.
ollama run phi4-reasoning:14b
On Radeon RX 9070
Q8
16 GB · 6 tok/s
3

🇺🇸 Phi-4 14B

Microsoft · 14B parameters · MIT · 16,384-token context

Exceptional reasoning for its size. STEM-focused.

Why this ranking Exceptional reasoning for its size. STEM-focused.
ollama run phi4:14b
On Radeon RX 9070
Q8
16 GB · 6 tok/s
4

🇨🇳 Qwen 2.5 Coder 14B Instruct

Alibaba · 14B parameters · Apache 2.0 · 131,072 tokens ctx

Coding 14B. HumanEval 89.6, LiveCodeBench 37.1. VRAM sweet spot for self-hosted coding.

Why this ranking Coding 14B. HumanEval 89.6, LiveCodeBench 37.1. VRAM sweet spot for self-hosted coding.
ollama run qwen2.5-coder:14b
On Radeon RX 9070
Q8
16 GB · 6 tok/s
5

🇨🇳 DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B

DeepSeek · 14B parameters · MIT · 131,072 tokens ctx

Distilled R1 Qwen 14B. AIME24 69.7, MATH-500 93.9. Outperforms o1-mini on many benchmarks.

Why this ranking Distilled R1 Qwen 14B. AIME24 69.7, MATH-500 93.9. Outperforms o1-mini on many benchmarks.
ollama run deepseek-r1:14b
On Radeon RX 9070
Q8
16 GB · 6 tok/s
6

🇨🇳 Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct

Alibaba · 14B parameters · Apache 2.0 · 131,072 tokens ctx

Dense 14B Apache 2.0. MMLU 79.7, HumanEval 83.5. 29+ languages. Good compromise.

Why this ranking Dense 14B Apache 2.0. MMLU 79.7, HumanEval 83.5. 29+ languages. Good compromise.
ollama run qwen2.5:14b
On Radeon RX 9070
Q8
16 GB · 6 tok/s
7

🇺🇸 Granite 4.1 8B Instruct

IBM · 8B parameters · Apache 2.0 · 131,072 tokens ctx

Dense 8B Apache 2.0, 12 languages including FR, 131k context, GQA 32Q/8KV. MMLU 73.84, HumanEval 85.37. Released April 29, 2026.

Why this ranking Dense 8B Apache 2.0, 12 languages including FR, 131k context, GQA 32Q/8KV. MMLU 73.84, HumanEval 85.37. Released April 29, 2026.
# HuggingFace : ibm-granite/granite-4.1-8b
On Radeon RX 9070
FP16
16 GB · 12 tok/s

Comparison table

Rank Model Params Q4 VRAM Context License On Radeon RX 9070
#1 Qwen 3 14B 14B 9 GB 131 072 Apache 2.0 6 tok/s · Q8
#2 Phi-4 Reasoning 14B 14B 9 GB 32 768 MIT 6 tok/s · Q8
#3 Phi-4 14B 14B 9 GB 16 384 MIT 6 tok/s · Q8
#4 Qwen 2.5 Coder 14B Instruct 14B 9 GB 131 072 Apache 2.0 6 tok/s · Q8
#5 DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B 14B 9 GB 131 072 MIT 6 tok/s · Q8
#6 Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct 14B 9 GB 131 072 Apache 2.0 6 tok/s · Q8
#7 Granite 4.1 8B Instruct 8B 5 GB 131 072 Apache 2.0 12 tok/s · FP16
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Ranking methodology

Filter: Q4_K_M ≤ 14 GB. Bonus: 7–14B and 13–24B. 644 GB/s + ROCm 6.

Criteria considered:

  • Q4_K_M ≤ 14 GB
  • Next-gen RDNA 4
  • AMD alternative to the 5070
  • ROCm 6 + Ollama

The scoring is fully transparent: see our methodology for details on VRAM/tokens/sec calculations.

Frequently asked questions

RX 9070 vs 9070 XT?

Even 16 GB + 644 GB/s. XT = ~10% more CUDA cores. Marginal difference for LLMs. Choose the cheaper one. See RX 9070 XT.

RX 9070 vs. RTX 5070?

9070 = 16 GB + 644 GB/s GDDR6 vs 5070 = 12 GB + 672 GB/s GDDR7. AMD has +4 GB of VRAM (24B accessible). NVIDIA is slightly faster at 12 GB. See RTX 5070.

ROCm 6 vs CUDA on Ollama?

Ollama 0.x supports both. Performance Ollama RX 9070 ≈ 80-85% of a RTX 5070 on Mistral 7B Q4. Acceptable. See guide.

LLM sweet spot: 9070?

Mistral Small 24B Q4 (~13 GB) at 22 tok/s, Qwen 3 14B Q5 (~10 GB) at 35 tok/s.

Head-to-head comparisons

Learn more with our detailed head-to-head matchups of the finalists:

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