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Can the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB run Mistral Small 24B?

RTX 3060 12GB × Mistral Small 24B8K context
Yes, with heavy quantizationFits only at a low-quality quant
Memory at Q2_K10.8 GB of 12 GB
Weights 8.9 GBKV cache 1.3 GBRuntime 0.6 GB
QuantQ2_KHeavily degraded
Memory10.8 GBof 12 GB usable
Speed~24tokens per second
  1. FP16
  2. Q8_0
  3. Q6_K
  4. Q5_K_M
  5. Q4_K_M
  6. Q3_K_M
  7. Q2_K

Only just. Mistral Small 24B fits on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB at Q2_K, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 24 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

Try other context lengths

Run it with Ollama

Ollama's default mistral-small:24b download is Q4_K_M, which needs about 16.2 GB, more than the 12 GB available. Download the Q2_K GGUF instead (LM Studio lists quants per model), or try a smaller context length.

Run it in the cloud

Want full quality? Run Mistral Small 24B on a bigger rented GPU.

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Memory needed by quantization

At 8,192 tokens of context. The black line marks the 12 GB the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB can use.

QuantQualityMemoryFits?Speed
FP16Full quality49.1 GBToo big—
Q8_0Near-lossless27 GBToo big—
Q6_KExcellent21.3 GBToo big—
Q5_K_MVery good18.7 GBToo big—
Q4_K_MGood, most popular16.2 GBToo big—
Q3_K_MNoticeably degraded13.5 GBToo big—
Q2_KHeavily degraded10.8 GBFits~24 tok/s

GPUs that run Mistral Small 24B comfortably

Check NVIDIA RTX 3090 prices

Models that run well on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB

Frequently asked questions

Can NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB run Mistral Small 24B?

Only just. Mistral Small 24B fits on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB at Q2_K, which costs noticeable quality. Expect about 24 tokens/second. A card with more memory is a better experience.

How much VRAM does Mistral Small 24B need?

About 16.2 GB at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context, and about 49.1 GB at full FP16 precision.

How fast is Mistral Small 24B on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB?

Roughly 24 tokens per second at Q2_K, estimated from the NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB's 360 GB/s memory bandwidth.