Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen3.5 9B

Qwen3.5 9B leads llmrun Score 99.4 to 62.5; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M.

Model A · Meta

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

62.5llmrun Score

8.0B · 128K context · Llama 3.1 Community · Jul 2024

ChatFunctions

Model B · Alibaba

Qwen3.5 9B

99.4llmrun Score

9.7B · 256K context · Apache 2.0 · Feb 2026

VisionFunctions

Which should you choose?

Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct if you want…

Lighter on memory
5.3 vs 6.4 GB at Q4_K_M
Also does chat
Qwen3.5 9B doesn't list it

Choose Qwen3.5 9B if you want…

Higher llmrun Score
99.4 vs 62.5
Stronger at science
104.2 vs 55.5
Stronger at reasoning
97.1 vs 69.3
Ahead on the benchmarks
8 of 8 shared boards
Longer context window
256K vs 128K tokens
Also does vision
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct doesn't list it

On your hardware

Each model at its default quant (Q4_K_M), a smaller one when it must. Estimates, ±20%.

MemoryLlama 3.1 8B InstructQwen3.5 9B

8 GB

RTX 4060 · 8 GB tier

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~33 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 16Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~28 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 32K

12 GB

RTX 3060 12GB · 12 GB tier

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~44 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 32Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~37 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 128K

16 GB

RTX 5060 Ti 16GB · 16 GB tier

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~55 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 32Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~46 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

24 GBreference

RTX 4090 · 24 GB tier

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~124 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 64Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~103 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

32 GB

RTX 5090 · 32 GB tier

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~220 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~183 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

48 GB

RTX A6000 · 48 GB tier

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~94 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~79 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

Mac 32 GB

Mac Mini M4 · Macs

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~16 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~13 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

Mac 64 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~72 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~60 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

Mac 128 GB

Mac Studio M4 Max · Macs

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Q4_K_M · ~72 tok/s

7.9 GB · up to 128Kfaster

Qwen3.5 9B

Q4_K_M · ~60 tok/s

6.6 GB · up to 256K

Reference GPU: RTX 4090. Tinted cell = the better pick on that machine (fits, more headroom, or at least 10% faster).

llmrun Score

with its 90% range · bars share one scale

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct Qwen3.5 9B

Overall

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

62.556–70

Qwen3.5 9B

99.496–103

Coding

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

55.933–79

Qwen3.5 9B

no data

Science

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

55.536–76

Qwen3.5 9B

104.296–112

Reasoning

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

69.356–82

Qwen3.5 9B

97.189–105

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct · #88 of 92 open models · #31 of 34 that fit 24 GB

Qwen3.5 9B · #49 of 92 open models · #10 of 34 that fit 24 GB

Benchmarks

8 shared boards: Llama 3.1 8B Instruct leads 0, Qwen3.5 9B leads 8 · Benchmarks imported Oct 2026

BoardLlama 3.1 8B InstructQwen3.5 9B

GPQA Diamond

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

27.0%#86/97 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

79.0%#25/97 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Feb 2026

AIME 2024/2025

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

1.7%#76/85 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

61.7%#36/85 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Feb 2026

MMLU-Pro

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

44.3%#87/144 open

IndependentTIGER-Lab

Qwen3.5 9B

82.5%#17/144 open

IndependentTIGER-Lab

SciCode

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

13.2%#64/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

27.6%#54/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Feb 2026

Chess Puzzles

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

0.0%#57/67 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

12.0%#23/67 open

IndependentEpoch AI · Feb 2026

CritPt

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

0.0%#52/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

0.3%#43/65 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Feb 2026

DTBench

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

50.9%#59/68 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

71.2%#31/68 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Feb 2026

LMCA

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.4%#51/54 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Jul 2024

Qwen3.5 9B

24.5%#28/54 open

Lab-reportedEpoch AI · Feb 2026

9 more boards (other shared and single-model boards)

Only Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (8)

LMArena Text1211.3
MATH Level 522.9%
MMLU56.1%
WeirdML1.7%
BALROG15.1%
GSM8K82.4%
PIQA81.2%
BoolQ82.8%

Only Qwen3.5 9B (1)

Terminal-Bench9.2%

VRAM by quantization

Memory to load the model and 2K context; below it, the total at 32K and 128K context. Lighter side in bold.

QuantLlama 3.1 8B InstructQwen3.5 9B

Q2_K

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.8 GB3.2 GB file

32K 9.3 GB · 128K 26.9 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

4.7 GB4.3 GB file

32K 5.5 GB · 128K 8.7 GB

Q3_K_S

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.9 GB3.7 GB file

32K 9.4 GB · 128K 27.0 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

4.8 GB4.3 GB file

32K 5.6 GB · 128K 8.8 GB

Q3_K_M

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

4.3 GB4.0 GB file

32K 9.8 GB · 128K 27.4 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

5.3 GB4.7 GB file

32K 6.1 GB · 128K 9.3 GB

Q4_0

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

4.4 GB4.7 GB file

32K 9.9 GB · 128K 27.5 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

5.4 GB5.4 GB file

32K 6.2 GB · 128K 9.4 GB

Q4_K_M

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.3 GB4.9 GB file

32K 10.8 GB · 128K 28.4 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

6.4 GB5.7 GB file

32K 7.2 GB · 128K 10.4 GB

Q5_K_M

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

6.3 GB5.7 GB file

32K 11.8 GB · 128K 29.4 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

7.5 GB6.6 GB file

32K 8.3 GB · 128K 11.5 GB

Q6_K

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

7.3 GB6.6 GB file

32K 12.8 GB · 128K 30.4 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

8.5 GB7.5 GB file

32K 9.3 GB · 128K 12.6 GB

Q8_0

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

8.8 GB8.5 GB file

32K 14.3 GB · 128K 32.0 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

10.2 GB9.5 GB file

32K 11.0 GB · 128K 14.3 GB

20 more quants

IQ2_XXS

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

2.4 GB2.5 GB file

32K 7.9 GB · 128K 25.6 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

3.2 GB3.2 GB file

32K 4.0 GB · 128K 7.3 GB

IQ2_XS

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

2.7 GB2.6 GB file

32K 8.2 GB · 128K 25.8 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

not listed

IQ2_S

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

2.8 GB2.8 GB file

32K 8.3 GB · 128K 25.9 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

3.6 GB3.5 GB file

32K 4.4 GB · 128K 7.6 GB

IQ2_M

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.0 GB2.9 GB file

32K 8.5 GB · 128K 26.1 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

3.8 GB3.6 GB file

32K 4.6 GB · 128K 7.9 GB

IQ3_XXS

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.4 GB3.3 GB file

32K 8.9 GB · 128K 26.5 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

4.3 GB4.0 GB file

32K 5.1 GB · 128K 8.3 GB

Q2_K_S

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.5 GB3.0 GB file

32K 9.0 GB · 128K 26.7 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

not listed

IQ3_XS

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.6 GB3.5 GB file

32K 9.1 GB · 128K 26.8 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

4.6 GB4.8 GB file

32K 5.4 GB · 128K 8.6 GB

IQ3_S

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

3.8 GB3.7 GB file

32K 9.3 GB · 128K 26.9 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

4.7 GB3.2 GB file

32K 5.5 GB · 128K 8.7 GB

IQ3_M

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

4.0 GB3.8 GB file

32K 9.5 GB · 128K 27.1 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

4.9 GB5.0 GB file

32K 5.7 GB · 128K 8.9 GB

Q3_K_L

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

4.5 GB4.3 GB file

32K 10.0 GB · 128K 27.7 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

5.5 GB5.4 GB file

32K 6.3 GB · 128K 9.6 GB

IQ4_XS

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

4.8 GB4.4 GB file

32K 10.3 GB · 128K 27.9 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

5.8 GB5.2 GB file

32K 6.6 GB · 128K 9.8 GB

IQ4_NL

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.0 GB4.7 GB file

32K 10.5 GB · 128K 28.1 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

6.0 GB5.4 GB file

32K 6.8 GB · 128K 10.0 GB

Q4_1

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.0 GB5.1 GB file

32K 10.5 GB · 128K 28.1 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

6.0 GB5.8 GB file

32K 6.8 GB · 128K 10.0 GB

Q4_K_S

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.0 GB4.7 GB file

32K 10.5 GB · 128K 28.1 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

6.0 GB5.4 GB file

32K 6.8 GB · 128K 10.0 GB

Q4_K_L

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.4 GB5.3 GB file

32K 10.9 GB · 128K 28.5 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

6.5 GB6.9 GB file

32K 7.3 GB · 128K 10.5 GB

Q5_0

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

5.5 GB5.6 GB file

32K 11.0 GB · 128K 28.6 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

not listed

Q5_1

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

6.1 GB6.1 GB file

32K 11.6 GB · 128K 29.2 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

not listed

Q5_K_S

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

6.1 GB5.6 GB file

32K 11.6 GB · 128K 29.2 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

7.2 GB6.4 GB file

32K 8.0 GB · 128K 11.2 GB

Q5_K_L

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

6.4 GB6.1 GB file

32K 11.9 GB · 128K 29.5 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

7.6 GB7.7 GB file

32K 8.4 GB · 128K 11.6 GB

BF16

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

17.7 GB16.1 GB file

32K 23.2 GB · 128K 40.8 GB

Qwen3.5 9B

19.9 GB17.9 GB file

32K 20.7 GB · 128K 23.9 GB

How to run each

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/bartowski/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Llama 3.1 8B Instruct →

Qwen3.5 9B

Ollama · Q4_K_M

$ollama run hf.co/unsloth/Qwen3.5-9B-GGUF:Q4_K_M

All ways to run Qwen3.5 9B →

Specifications

Specifications of Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3.5 9B
Spec	Llama 3.1 8B Instruct	Qwen3.5 9B
Publisher	Meta	Alibaba
Parameters	8.0B	9.7B
Architecture	—	Qwen3_5ForConditionalGeneration
Context	128K tokens	256K tokens
Modalities	Chat, Function-calling	Vision, Function-calling
License	Llama 3.1 Community	Apache 2.0
Released	Jul 2024	Feb 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3.5 9B?

Qwen3.5 9B leads llmrun Score 99.4 to 62.5; both fit 24 GB at Q4_K_M. Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct for lighter on memory and also does chat; choose Qwen3.5 9B for higher llmrun Score and stronger at science.

Which needs less VRAM, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3.5 9B?

At Q4_K_M, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct requires 5.3 GB while Qwen3.5 9B needs 6.4 GB, making Llama 3.1 8B Instruct the easier model to run on your local setup.

Which is faster on RTX 4090?

Estimated decode speed on RTX 4090 is about 124 tok/s for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (Q4_K_M) and 103 tok/s for Qwen3.5 9B (Q4_K_M), so Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is faster. Estimates, ±20%.

Can I run Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3.5 9B on a 16 GB GPU?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct fits at Q4_K_M; Qwen3.5 9B fits at Q4_K_M.

Which has a longer context window, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3.5 9B?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct supports 131,072 tokens and Qwen3.5 9B supports 262,144 tokens.