NVIDIA RTX 5070

The RTX 5070 is the most popular Blackwell GPU on Steam as of mid-2025, but for local AI it has a major limitation: 12 GB of VRAM. While the GDDR7 memory runs at 672 GB/s (fast!), the 12 GB ceiling means you're limited to ~7-13B models at comfortable quants. It's a solid entry-level local AI card, but serious users should stretch to the 5070 Ti or look at used RTX 4090s.

Quick verdict

The RTX 5070 is fine for running Qwen3-8B or Gemma 3 12B at speed, but 12 GB is tight even for Mistral Small 3 (24B) at Q4_K_M. If your local AI ambitions are modest (code completion, simple chat), this works great. If you want to run 30B-class models, save up.

Spec breakdown

• VRAM: 12 GB GDDR7
• Memory bandwidth: 672 GB/s (28 Gbps)
• TDP: 250 W (recommend 650W+ PSU)
• PCIe: 5.0 ×16
• Architecture: Blackwell GB205-300
• CUDA cores: 6,144
• Tensor cores: 192 (5th gen)

Real-world AI inference

Model	Tokens/sec	Source
Qwen3-8B Q4_K_M	~65 tok/s	Community
Gemma 3 12B Q4_K_M	~45 tok/s	Community
Mistral Small 3 Q4_K_M	~28 tok/s	Community (tight fit)
Qwen3-30B Q3_K_M	~12 tok/s	Offload needed
ComfyUI SDXL (1024×1024)	~14 s/image	Community

Best models that fit

• Q4_K_M: Qwen3-8B, Gemma 3 12B - comfortable
• Q5_K_M: Llama 3.1 8B, Mistral 7B - excellent
• Q4_K_M (tight): Mistral Small 3 (~14 GB needs aggressive quant)
• Q3_K_M: Qwen3-30B - requires offloading layers to system RAM

Where to buy

Affiliate disclosure: links below earn us a small commission.

• Amazon: Button above
• Newegg: Alternative retailer

Honest alternatives

• RTX 5070 Ti (~$900): 16 GB GDDR7, much better for AI, $300 more
• RTX 4070 Super ($500-550): Similar performance, 12 GB GDDR6X
• RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (~$450): 16 GB but slower - better for model fit, worse for speed

What the community says

"RTX 5070 is great for 1080p gaming and running 7B models at lightning speed. But if you're serious about local AI, save for the 5070 Ti or get a used 4090."

• u/ai-curious on r/LocalLLaMA, 187 upvotes