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Find by VRAM / unified memory

Local LLMs that run in 12 GB of VRAM

Of the 1,276 models listed on this site, 753 have a quantization whose estimated memory fits in 12 GB at an 8,192-token context. For each model we show the largest (most precise) quantization that fits.

Data as of

Models that fit
753
Largest model that fits
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP4-Local-Strata 51.2B
12 GB devices (listed here)
16

Sorted by Hugging Face downloads (last 30 days, summed across sources). Not a performance ranking.

See the full download ranking →
  1. 1 Qwen3.8-27B 27.3B IQ2_S 12.9 GB
  2. 2 Ornith-1.5-9B 9.2B Q8_0 11.2 GB
  3. 3 Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B 35.5B IQ2_S 12.8 GB
  4. 4 Huihui-Qwen3.8-27B-abliterated 27.3B UD-IQ3_XXS 12.8 GB
  5. 5 gemma-4-12B-it 11.9B UD-Q6_K_XL 12.4 GB
  6. 6 Qwen3.5-9B 9B Q8_0 11.2 GB
  7. 7 Qwen3.8-27B-Uncensored 27.3B IQ2_M 12.4 GB
  8. 8 MOSS-Music-8B-Instruct Q8_0 10.8 GB
  9. 9 gemma-4-26B-A4B-it 25.2B UD-IQ3_S 12.8 GB
  10. 10 Ornith-1.0-9B 9B Q8_0 10.9 GB

Estimated Memory is estimated at 8,192 tokens with an f16 KV cache.

Third-party evaluations of models that run in 12 GB

Top values from other organizations for the original models before quantization (not this site's rating).

Human preference (LMArena)

See all →
  1. 1.Qwen3.8-27B 1,433
  2. 2.Qwen3.5-27B 1,409
  3. 3.Qwen3.5-35B-A3B 1,394
  4. 4.Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 1,382
  5. 5.gemma-3-27b-it 1,365

Source: LMArena (CC BY 4.0).

Capabilities (Epoch AI)

See all →
  1. 1.Qwen3.8-27B 152.7
  2. 2.Qwen3.6-27B 146.7
  3. 3.gemma-4-31B-it 144.2
  4. 4.Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 144.1
  5. 5.Qwen3.5-35B-A3B 144.0

Source: Epoch Capabilities Index (Epoch AI) (CC BY 4.0).

Devices with 12 GB of VRAM or unified memory

Choose a device to see the models that run on it and estimated generation speed.

All models that fit in 12 GB of VRAM

One entry per model, up to 30, sorted by popularity. For each model we show the largest (most precise) quantization that fits in this memory with a context of at least 8K tokens. The context length is the longest one that quantization fits (for models whose maximum is under 8K, such as embedding models, that maximum). Models that are not for chat or text generation are labelled with their use. "Left" is the memory minus the estimate; under 5% of the memory is marked "tight" (not a guarantee that it fits).

Frequently asked questions

Which local LLMs run in 12 GB of VRAM?
On this site, 753 models have a quantization that fits in 12 GB at 8,192 tokens (estimated). Popular ones include Qwen3.8-27B, Ornith-1.5-9B, Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B, Huihui-Qwen3.8-27B-abliterated, gemma-4-12B-it.
What is the largest model that runs in 12 GB of VRAM?
Among the models listed here, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-FP4-Local-Strata (about 51.2B). With BF16 it needs an estimated 2.66 GB at 8,192 tokens. Smaller quantizations lower quality.
Is it the same for a Mac with 12 GB of unified memory?
macOS limits how much memory the GPU can use, so not all 12 GB is available to the model. On a Mac, leave headroom over the required memory.
What happens with a longer context?
The KV cache grows, so the required memory grows too. Each model page shows estimated memory for each context length.