Best LLMs for 12 GB VRAM

作者: Jakub Rusinowski · 最后更新: 2026年7月15日

These are the strongest local models that fit entirely in 12 GB of VRAM, ranked by capability, with the quantization level and estimated tokens/sec needed to fit.

GPUs at This Tier

Ranked Models

Qwen 2.5 Family — Qwen 2.5 14B InstructQ4_K_M · 8.4525 GB · ~26 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Qwen 3 — Qwen 3 14BQ4_K_M · 8.935500000000001 GB · ~26 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
DeepSeek R1 — DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14BQ4_K_M · 8.4525 GB · ~27 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Phi-4 Family — Phi-4 (14B)Q4_K_M · 8.4525 GB · ~26 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Granite 3.0 — Granite 3.0 8B InstructQ4_K_M · 4.83 GB · ~41 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Qwen 3.5 (Legacy Listing — Unverified) — Qwen 3.5 14BQ4_K_M · 8.4525 GB · ~27 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Bonsai 27B — Ternary Bonsai 27BTernary (1.58-bit, ~1.71 bpw) · 5.77125 GB · ~35 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Qwen 2.5 Family — Qwen 2.5 7B InstructQ4_K_M · 4.5885 GB · ~46 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Qwen 3 — Qwen 3 8BQ4_K_M · 4.950749999999999 GB · ~41 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
DeepSeek R1 — DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8BQ4_K_M · 4.83 GB · ~42 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Qwen3-Coder — Qwen3-Coder 8BQ4_K_M · 4.83 GB · ~42 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Mistral Family — Mistral NeMo 12BQ4_K_M · 7.245 GB · ~30 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Qwen 3.5 (Legacy Listing — Unverified) — Qwen 3.5 14BQ4_K_M · 8.4525 GB · ~27 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Gemma 4 (Legacy Listing — Unverified) — Gemma 4 12BQ4_K_M · 7.245 GB · ~30 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Gemma 3 — Gemma 3 12B InstructQ4_K_M · 7.245 GB · ~28 tok/s on Intel Arc B580
Buy This HardwareIntel Arc B580 12GB — 12 GB VRAM · 190 W board powerDeploy in the Cloud NowRTX 4090 on RunPod — from $0.34/hr · rate checked 2026-07

or compare on Vast.ai from $0.35/hr (typical low · varies)

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FAQ

What LLMs run well with 12 GB VRAM?

Qwen 2.5 Family, Qwen 3, DeepSeek R1, Phi-4 Family, Granite 3.0 all fit in 12 GB VRAM.

Which GPUs have 12 GB VRAM?

Intel Arc B580, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super.

Can-I-Run Pages Near 12 GB

Adjacent VRAM Tiers

No discrete GPU?

Buying Guide

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