Calculate the TPS of the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile on local AI models
Every model in our catalogue assessed against this card at the context length and minimum quality you choose. Speed is an estimate for a single request, calculated from this card's memory bandwidth and the size of each model once compressed.
Calculated for this card
679 models in our catalogue altogether
Largest model it holds
Baichuan 1-13B
13.3B · Q3_K_M · 16.4 tok/s
Fastest model
Gemma 3 QAT 1B
80.8 tok/s · 1B
Which AI models can run on a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile?
Set the inputs, read the answer
More context means more memory for the conversation cache. Speed is for a fresh conversation and does not change with this setting.
Hides models that would only fit by being compressed below this point.
337 models match
Calculating| Quantisation | Fit | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
80.8
tok/s
28–162 · low confidence |
Gemma 3 1B | 1B | Mar 2025 | 1.8 GB | 33k tokens | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
80.8
tok/s
28–162 · low confidence |
Gemma 3 QAT 1B | 1B | Apr 2025 | 1.8 GB | 33k tokens | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
80.8
tok/s
28–162 · low confidence |
HGRN 1B (WT 103) ≈ | 1B | Nov 2023 | 1.8 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
80.8
tok/s
28–162 · low confidence |
LLama 3..2 Typhoon 2 1B ≈ | 1B | Dec 2024 | 1.8 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
80.8
tok/s
28–162 · low confidence |
OLMo-1B ≈ | 1B | Feb 2024 | 1.8 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
80.8
tok/s
28–162 · low confidence |
Pythia-1b ≈ | 1B | Apr 2023 | 1.8 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
74.8
tok/s
26–150 · low confidence |
OpenELM-1.1B ≈ | 1.1B | May 2024 | 1.9 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
73.4
tok/s
26–147 · low confidence |
DeciCoder-1B ≈ | 1.1B | Aug 2023 | 1.9 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
73.4
tok/s
26–147 · low confidence |
SantaCoder ≈ | 1.1B | Jan 2023 | 1.9 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
73.4
tok/s
26–147 · low confidence |
TinyLlama-1.1B (1T token checkpoint) ≈ | 1.1B | Oct 2023 | 1.9 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
73.4
tok/s
26–147 · low confidence |
TinyLlama-1.1B (3T token checkpoint) ≈ | 1.1B | Oct 2023 | 1.9 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
67.3
tok/s
24–135 · low confidence |
EXAONE 4.0 (1.2B) ≈ | 1.2B | Jul 2025 | 2.0 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
67.3
tok/s
24–135 · low confidence |
MinerU2.5 ≈ | 1.2B | Sep 2025 | 2.0 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
67.3
tok/s
24–135 · low confidence |
Pleias 1.0 1.2B ≈ | 1.2B | Dec 2024 | 2.0 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
67.3
tok/s
24–135 · low confidence |
Pleias-RAG-1B ≈ | 1.2B | Apr 2025 | 2.0 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
65.7
tok/s
23–131 · low confidence |
Llama 3.2 1B | 1.2B | Sep 2024 | 2.2 GB | 131k tokens | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
64.8
tok/s
23–130 · low confidence |
MiniCPM-1.2B ≈ | 1.2B | Jun 2024 | 2.0 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
DeepSeek Coder 1.3B ≈ | 1.3B | Jan 2024 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
DeepSeek-VL-1.3B ≈ | 1.3B | Mar 2024 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
DigiRL ≈ | 1.3B | Jun 2024 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
GLA Transformer 1.3B ≈ | 1.3B | Aug 2024 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
Janus 1.3B ≈ | 1.3B | Oct 2024 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
Kosmos-2.5 ≈ | 1.3B | Aug 2024 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
Otter ≈ | 1.3B | May 2023 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
|
62.1
tok/s
22–124 · low confidence |
Phi-1 ≈ | 1.3B | Oct 2023 | 2.1 GB | 131k tokens ? | Q8_0 | Comfortable |
Speeds are estimates for a single request — one conversation at a time — calculated from memory bandwidth, model size and quantisation. Real throughput varies with the inference runtime and its version. Figures published by hardware vendors measure many simultaneous requests and are much higher.
On record
GeForce GTX 980 Mobile full specification
Everything on record for this board, ordered by how much it bears on running a language model rather than by how a spec sheet would list it. Memory comes first because it decides the outcome; the rest is context.
Memory
The two specifications that decide what this card can run and how quickly. Capacity sets which models fit; bandwidth sets how many tokens per second they produce once they do.
- Memory size
- 8 GB
- Memory bandwidth
- 224 GB/s
- Memory type
- GDDR5
- Memory bus width
- 256 bit
- Memory clock
- 1.75 GHz
The chip
Which processor is on the board and how it was manufactured. A smaller process size generally means more performance for the same power.
- Graphics processor
- GM204
- Architecture
- Maxwell 2.0
- Generation
- GeForce 900M
- Foundry
- TSMC
- Process size
- 28 nm
- Transistors
- 5.2 billion
- Transistor density
- 13,100 K/mm²
- Die size
- 398 mm²
- Package
- BGA-1745
- Released
- 21 September 2015
Clock speeds
How fast the processor runs. Worth far less here than on a gaming benchmark: generating text is limited by memory bandwidth, so a higher clock barely moves the result.
- Base clock
- 1.06 GHz
- Boost clock
- 1.14 GHz
Processing units
What the chip contains. These drive graphics performance and matter mainly for processing a long prompt rather than for producing the answer.
- Shading units
- 2,048
- Texture mapping units
- 128
- Render output units
- 64
- Streaming multiprocessors
- 16
- L1 cache
- 48 KB
- L2 cache
- 2 MB
Theoretical performance
Peak arithmetic rates published for the board. These are ceilings that no real workload reaches, and generating text reaches a small fraction of them because it is limited by memory rather than arithmetic.
- Single precision (FP32)
- 4.7 TFLOPS
- Double precision (FP64)
- 145.9 GFLOPS
- Pixel rate
- 73 GPixel/s
- Texture rate
- 146 GTexel/s
The board
What it takes to physically install and power the card — the practical constraints that decide whether it fits the machine you already own.
- Power connectors
- None
- Bus interface
- MXM-B (3.0)
- Slot width
- MXM Module
Software support
Which graphics and compute interfaces the card supports. CUDA compute capability is the one that bears on inference: below 7.0 there are no tensor cores, and modern inference software falls back to slower code paths.
- CUDA compute capability
- 5.2
- DirectX
- 12.1
- OpenGL
- 4.6
- Vulkan
- 1.4
- OpenCL
- 3.0
- Shader model
- 6.8
Listings
Where to buy a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile
No vendor is currently listing this card. Listings come from vendors who publish them here directly — browse the vendor directory to see who is selling what.
What the numbers mean
What the memory subsystem means for AI
Memory
8 GB
Bandwidth
224 GB/s
Largest model
Baichuan 1-13B
At 8 GB of GDDR5 the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile is limited to the smaller end of the catalogue. About 7.2 GB is actually available to a runtime, and a model has to fit entirely inside it before generating anything at all.
At 224 GB/s across a 256-bit bus, bandwidth is this card's real constraint. Every token requires reading the entire model out of memory, so a large model will feel slow here even when it fits.
That comes from a 1.75 GHz memory clock across the bus width above. Widening the bus and raising the clock are the two levers a manufacturer has, which is why a card with unremarkable cores can still generate quickly.
The biggest thing it holds is Baichuan 1-13B (13.3B) at Q3_K_M compression, for about 16.4 tokens per second.
The chip and how it was built
The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile is built on the GM204 graphics processor, using NVIDIA's Maxwell 2.0 architecture, as part of the GeForce 900M generation.
The chip is manufactured by TSMC, on a 28 nm process, with a die measuring 398 mm², holding 5.2 billion transistors. A smaller process generally means more performance for the same power, though for language models it matters far less than the memory subsystem.
It was released in September 2015, roughly 10 years ago. Inference software support tends to follow hardware by a year or two, so a card of this age generally has mature, well-optimised code paths available to it.
Compute throughput, and why it matters less than it looks
FP64
145.9 GFLOPS
Double-precision throughput is 145.9 GFLOPS. It has no bearing on running a language model — no inference runtime uses it — but it separates datacentre parts from consumer ones, since the latter deliberately restrict it.
Clocks run from 1.06 GHz at base to 1.14 GHz boosted. Worth far less here than on a gaming benchmark: raising the clock speeds up the arithmetic, and the arithmetic is not what generation is waiting on.
Cache and processing units
The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile has 48 KB of L1 cache, backed by 2 MB of L2. Cache absorbs a share of the memory traffic that would otherwise hit the main bus, which is the one place on this page where a number other than bandwidth quietly affects generation speed — a large L2 lets more of the working set stay close to the cores.
There are 2,048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. These drive graphics workloads and contribute to prompt processing, but they sit idle for much of the time a model spends generating a reply.
Power, size and installation
The board occupies a mxm module. Worth checking against the case and power supply already in the machine, since the largest cards need considerably more of both than a typical desktop provides.
It connects over MXM-B (3.0). The interface governs how quickly a model is loaded from disk into the card, not how fast it runs once there, so a narrower link costs a few seconds at startup and nothing thereafter.
The extremes
The largest AI models that run on a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile
The biggest open-weight models that fit on this card, newest first. Each is shown at the best compression the card can hold.
The fastest AI models on a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile
Where this card produces tokens quickest. Smaller models dominate here, because generating each token means reading the whole model out of memory once.
Step by step
How to work out the tokens per second of a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile
You do not have to calculate anything by hand — the gputps.com calculator on this page has already worked it out for every model this card can hold. Reading off the answer takes six steps.
-
01
Start with the model, not the specification
All 337 models the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile handles are already listed. The search box takes a name or a size such as 27b, which matches on parameter count.
-
02
Set the context length you will actually use
Longer conversations cost memory on top of the weights. With 8 GB to work in, that is frequently the difference between a model fitting and not.
-
03
Choose how far you will compress
Compression is what lets bigger models fit. The quality control drops any model that needs more of it than you are willing to give.
-
04
Take the range as the answer
Each speed is an estimate for a single conversation, with a range beneath it — 80.8 tok/s on Gemma 3 QAT 1B at the top end here. The same card and model vary by thirty to fifty per cent between inference runtimes.
-
05
Check the memory column before committing
A tight fit runs but leaves no room to raise the context later; comfortable has headroom. The memory column shows what each model needs against the 8 GB available.
-
06
Cross-check against other hardware
Each model page repeats this calculation for the whole catalogue. Worth a look before deciding: it shows what else runs the same model, and how the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile compares.
Answers
GeForce GTX 980 Mobile — common questions
When was the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile released?
The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile was released in September 2015.
How much cache does a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile have?
The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile has 48 KB of L1 cache, and 2 MB of L2 cache. Cache absorbs part of the memory traffic that would otherwise reach the main bus, so a larger L2 gives a modest lift to generation speed beyond what bandwidth alone predicts.
Does the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile support CUDA?
Yes. The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile reports CUDA compute capability 5.2, which predates tensor cores. Capability 7.0 and above has tensor cores, which modern inference software uses; below that it falls back to slower code paths for quantised models.
What bus interface does the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile use?
It uses MXM-B (3.0). This governs how fast a model is loaded onto the card rather than how fast it runs once loaded, so it costs a few seconds at startup and nothing during generation.
Is the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile good for running local AI models?
Its memory limits it to smaller models though its bandwidth means generation will feel slow on larger models. In total it runs 337 of the models we track. Whether that is enough depends entirely on which model you want — the table above answers that directly.
Can a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile run a model that does not fit in its memory?
It can be split, with the overflow held in system memory — but that part drags the whole thing down, and none of the 8 GB figures on this page assume it.
Would two GeForce GTX 980 Mobile cards be twice as fast?
Pairing GeForce GTX 980 Mobile cards buys headroom rather than pace: 16 GB of combined memory, at roughly the same generation speed as one.
What AI models can a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile run?
337 of the 679 open-weight language models we track fit on a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile and can be run locally on it. The table on this page lists every one, with the memory it needs, the quantisation it runs at and an estimated generation speed.
What is the largest AI model a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile can run?
The largest model in our catalogue that fits on a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile is Baichuan 1-13B at 13.3B parameters, compressed to Q3_K_M. It generates roughly 16.4 tokens per second and needs about 7.2 GB of the card's memory.
How many tokens per second does a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile produce?
It depends on the model. On a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile the fastest model we track is Gemma 3 QAT 1B at about 80.8 tokens per second, while larger models run proportionally slower because each token requires reading the whole model out of memory once. Speeds are estimates for a single conversation at a time.
Can a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile run a 7B model?
Yes. For example a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile runs MetaMath 7B (LLaMa finetune) at Q4_K_M, using about 6.5 GB of memory and generating around 26.6 tokens per second.
Can a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile run a 13B model?
Yes. For example a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile runs Gemma 4 12B at Q3_K_M, using about 6.5 GB of memory and generating around 18.2 tokens per second.
How much memory does a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile have?
A GeForce GTX 980 Mobile has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory. Around a tenth of that is reserved by the inference runtime and the driver, leaving roughly 7.2 GB available for a model and its conversation.
What is the memory bandwidth of a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile?
The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile has 224 GB/s of memory bandwidth, across a 256-bit memory bus. This is the single best predictor of how fast it generates text, because producing each token means reading the entire model out of memory once.
What type of memory does a GeForce GTX 980 Mobile use?
It uses GDDR5 clocked at 1.75 GHz. HBM types are found on datacentre accelerators and carry far more bandwidth than the GDDR used on desktop cards, which is why they generate tokens considerably faster at the same capacity.
Who makes the GeForce GTX 980 Mobile?
The GeForce GTX 980 Mobile is a NVIDIA product, with the chip manufactured by TSMC, on a 28 nm process.
The other direction
Looking at it from the other side?
This page starts from the hardware. If you already know which model you want and need to know what it takes to run it, start from the model instead.