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Can the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 run Falcon 40B Instruct?

13Basic quality (D) · 13 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q3_K_M it needs about 22.9 GB of 32.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 68.0 tok/s.

Best quant
Q3_K_M
Generation speed
68.0 tok/s
Prompt processing
1,805 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.6 s
Largest safe context
2K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

On Windows

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

  • One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  • Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.
ollama run falcon:40b
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

On Linux

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

  • One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
  • Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.
ollama run falcon:40b
  • LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Falcon 40B Instruct

Recommended for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090: Q3_K_M. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run falcon:40b

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q3_K_M file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/mradermacher/falcon-40b-instruct-i1-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/mradermacher/falcon-40b-instruct-i1-GGUF:Q3_K_M

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from TII, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/tiiuae/falcon-40b-instruct (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 1 day ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 13Basic quality (D) · 13 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q3_K_M, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great
How well it runs on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090: speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.6.0 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.15.0 / 15
Match score61.0 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 19.2 GB 32.0 GB 86.4 tok/s Runs great 11Basic quality (D) · 11 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 58/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 22.9 GB 32.0 GB 68.0 tok/s Runs great 13Basic quality (D) · 13 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 27.9 GB 32.0 GB 52.6 tok/s Runs welltight fit 15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 32.1 GB 32.0 GB 39.1 tok/s Runs welloffloads to RAM 15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 46/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 36.7 GB 32.0 GB 8.0 tok/s Slowoffloads to RAM 15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 38/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 46.8 GB 32.0 GB 2.8 tok/s Very slowheavy RAM offload 16Basic quality (D) · 16 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 30/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
F16 86.1 GB 32.0 GB — Won't run 16Basic quality (D) · 16 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 2/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 2K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.

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