RUNLOCALAIv38
→WILL IT RUNBEST GPUCOMPARETROUBLESHOOTSTARTPULSEMODELSHARDWARETOOLSBENCH
RUNLOCALAI

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SYS · ONLINEUPTIME · 100%2026 · operator-owned
RUNLOCALAI · v38
← Back to Will-it-run

Custom build engine

Describe your build — any GPUs, CPU, RAM, OS, runtime, use case. We'll compute effective VRAM honestly, recommend a runtime, and tell you which models fit comfortably, which are borderline, and which aren't practical.

Total VRAM ≠ pooled VRAM. We never sum VRAM unless the silicon truly pools (Apple unified memory). We always explain why effective is lower than total.

Describe your build

Add GPUs, set CPU/RAM/OS, optionally pick a runtime + use case. URL updates as you change fields — share a build by copying the URL.

Build summary

Total VRAM
24 GB
Effective VRAM
~23 GB
range 20-22 GB
Topology
single gpu
none
Setup difficulty
beginner
speed penalty ~0%
Why effective VRAM is lower than total

Single NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 — 24 GB VRAM minus ~1.5 GB runtime overhead = ~22 GB usable for weights + KV cache + activations. The 8% headroom we reserve covers the typical OS/driver footprint and gives KV-cache room for an 8K-32K context.

Recommended runtime

Best engine for this topology + skill level + use case.

ExLlamaV2
primary
involved

Highest single-stream throughput on consumer NVIDIA. EXL2 mixed-bit quants are the leading consumer-tier inference format.

llama.cpp
alternative
moderate

Cross-format flexibility — GGUF works everywhere; the engine that powers Ollama and LM Studio.

Models that fit your build

183 models considered. Categorized by headroom at the recommended quant + a sensible context for your use case.

Comfortable
24 models · ≥15% headroom
ModelParamsQuantVRAM est.ContextNote
OLMo 2 13B13BQ4_K_M17.4 GB4,096Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 4,096 ctx with 24% headroom.
Stable LM 2 12B12BQ4_K_M16.5 GB4,096Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 4,096 ctx with 28% headroom.
Tulu 3 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Molmo 7B-D8BQ4_K_M13 GB4,096Comfortable fit with 44% headroom — room to extend context or run alongside other workloads.
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Granite 3.0 8B Instruct8BQ4_K_M13 GB4,096Comfortable fit with 44% headroom — room to extend context or run alongside other workloads.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
MiniCPM-V 2.6 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
OpenCoder 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Granite 3.2 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
InternLM 3 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Granite 3.3 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Ministral 8B Instruct8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
MiniCPM-V 3 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Aya 23 8B8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
Llama 3.3 8B Instruct8BQ4_K_M19.1 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 17% headroom.
EXAONE 3.5 8B8BQ4_K_M18.8 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 18% headroom.
CodeGemma 7B7BQ4_K_M17.9 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 22% headroom.
Falcon Mamba 7B7BQ4_K_M17.9 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 22% headroom.
Mistral 7B Instruct v0.37BQ5_K_M18.5 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q5_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 19% headroom.
Qwen 2.5 7B Instruct7BQ8_018.3 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q8_0 + 8,192 ctx with 21% headroom.
Qwen 2.5-VL 7B7BQ4_K_M17.9 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 22% headroom.
Codestral Mamba 7B7BQ4_K_M17.9 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 22% headroom.
Qwen 3 7B7BQ4_K_M17.9 GB8,192Fits cleanly at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx with 22% headroom.
Borderline
13 models · tight, may need quant downgrade
ModelParamsQuantVRAM est.ContextNote
DeepSeek MoE 16B Base16BQ4_K_M20 GB4,096Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 13% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Llama 3.2 11B Vision Instruct11BQ4_K_M22.5 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 2% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Llama 3.2 11B Vision11BQ4_K_M22.5 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 2% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Falcon 3 10B10BQ4_K_M21.3 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 7% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Gemma 2 9B Instruct9BQ4_K_M20.2 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 12% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Yi Coder 9B9BQ4_K_M20.2 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 12% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Nemotron 3 Nano 9B9BQ4_K_M20.2 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 12% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
GLM-4 9B9BQ4_K_M20.2 GB8,192Tight fit at Q4_K_M — only 12% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Hermes 3 Llama 3.1 8B8BQ8_022.9 GB8,192Tight fit at Q8_0 — only 0% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Qwen 3 8B8BQ8_022.9 GB8,192Tight fit at Q8_0 — only 0% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct8BQ8_020 GB8,192Tight fit at Q8_0 — only 13% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B7BQ8_021.3 GB8,192Tight fit at Q8_0 — only 7% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Qwen 2.5 Coder 7B Instruct7BQ6_K19.6 GB8,192Tight fit at Q6_K — only 15% headroom. KV cache for longer context will OOM. Cap context tighter or drop one quant level.
Not practical
16 models · oversize for this build
ModelParamsQuantVRAM est.ContextNote
NV-Embed v28BFP1630.4 GB8,192~30.4 GB needed at FP16 + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 32%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Qwen 3 Embedding 8B8BFP1630.8 GB8,192~30.8 GB needed at FP16 + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 34%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
PaliGemma 2 10B10BBF1636 GB8,192~36.0 GB needed at BF16 + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 56%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Pixtral 12B12BQ4_K_M23.6 GB8,192~23.6 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 3%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Gemma 3 12B12BQ4_K_M23.6 GB8,192~23.6 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 3%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct12BQ4_K_M23.6 GB8,192~23.6 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 3%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Baichuan 4 13B13BQ4_K_M24.7 GB8,192~24.7 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 8%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
GLM-4V 9B14BQ4_K_M25.8 GB8,192~25.8 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Qwen 2.5 14B Instruct14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Phi-4 Multimodal14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Qwen 2.5 Coder 14B Instruct14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Phi-4 14B14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Phi-4 Reasoning 14B14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
Qwen 3 14B14BQ4_K_M25.9 GB8,192~25.9 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 12%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.
StarCoder 2 15B15BQ4_K_M27 GB8,192~27.0 GB needed at Q4_K_M + 8,192 ctx — overshoots effective VRAM by 17%. Drop quant or move to a larger build.

Related

Multi-GPU buying guide →

NVLink vs PCIe, tensor- vs pipeline-parallel, mixed-card honesty.

Hardware combinations →

Curated multi-GPU / cluster setups with effective-VRAM math.

Setup path-finder →

OS + runtime install commands for your stack.

Compatibility matrix →

Runtime × OS × hardware support truth table.

Shopping a full build instead of a single card?

If you're sizing a fresh AI build (not just a card to drop into an existing system), the build-budget walkthroughs cover the whole BOM honestly: AI PC build under $1,000 or AI PC build under $2,000 cover the realistic 2026 budget tiers.

Vertical-fit shopping? AI PC for students covers the budget + portability tradeoffs; AI PC for developers covers the coding workflow specifics; AI PC for small business covers the document-RAG / always-on machine.

Form-factor first? See best laptop for local AI, best Mac for local AI, best mini PC for local AI, or best used GPU for local AI.

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