YOUR MEMORY BUDGET

Local AI models for 8GB VRAM.

Explore models by theoretical weight storage. This shortlist covers available downloadable language models with a known or name-derived parameter count.

6 GBleft for weights at 4-bit
8 GB budget − 2 GB reserve

The reserve is your assumption, not a measured overhead allowance. The default 2 GB may be too little for your runtime or context length. Results are not confirmed fits and have no verified speed rating. Weight estimates use decimal GB and do not include quantization overhead. For timed results on one 12GB machine, see measured speeds.

852 models within the weight budget

Largest parameter count first · not a quality ranking

OpenBMB · Downloadable

MiniCPM4-Survey

Text generation

Generates text for conversations and writing.

Source listed
Jun 5, 2025
Parameters
8.2B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4.1 GB
License
apache-2.0
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BAAI · Downloadable

Video-XL-2

Video understanding

Generates text for conversations and writing.

Source listed
May 30, 2025
Parameters
8.1B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4.1 GB
License
apache-2.0
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OpenBMB · Downloadable

AgentCPM-GUI

Vision

Understands text and images and responds in text.

Source listed
May 8, 2025
Parameters
8.1B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
apache-2.0
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OpenBMB · Downloadable

MiniCPM-V-2_6

VisionDocument readingEmbeddings

Understands text and images and responds in text.

Source listed
Aug 4, 2024
Parameters
8.1B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
Not disclosed
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Meta · Downloadable

meta-wiki-expert

Text generation

Generates text, according to its published model architecture (LlamaForCausalLM). No task is listed on Hugging Face, so check the model card for intended use.

Source listed
Aug 5, 2025
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
cc-by-nc-4.0
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Aleph Alpha · Downloadable

llama-3_1-8b-tfree-hat-base

Text generation

Generates text, according to its published model architecture (HATForCausalLM). No task is listed on Hugging Face, so check the model card for intended use.

Source listed
Apr 25, 2025
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
other
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Aleph Alpha · Downloadable

llama-3_1-8b-tfree-hat-dpo

Text generation

Generates text, according to its published model architecture (HATForCausalLM). No task is listed on Hugging Face, so check the model card for intended use.

Source listed
Apr 25, 2025
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
other
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Aleph Alpha · Downloadable

llama-3_1-8b-tfree-hat-sft

Text generation

Generates text, according to its published model architecture (HATForCausalLM). No task is listed on Hugging Face, so check the model card for intended use.

Source listed
Apr 25, 2025
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
other
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BAAI · Downloadable

Infinity-Instruct-7M-Gen-Llama3_1-8B

Text generation

Generates text, according to its published model architecture (LlamaForCausalLM). No task is listed on Hugging Face, so check the model card for intended use.

Source listed
Aug 2, 2024
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
llama3.1
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Baidu · Downloadable

Qianfan-VL-8B

VisionDocument readingEmbeddings

Understands text and images and responds in text.

Source listed
Sep 16, 2025
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
other
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inclusionAI · Downloadable

AReaL-boba-2-8B

Text generation

Generates text for conversations and writing.

Source listed
Jun 3, 2025
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
apache-2.0
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inclusionAI · Downloadable

ZwZ-8B

Vision

Understands text and images and responds in text.

Source listed
Feb 12, 2026
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
apache-2.0
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LightOn · Downloadable

Qwen3-8B-DE

Text generation

Generates text for conversations and writing.

Source listed
Apr 10, 2026
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
apache-2.0
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LightOn · Downloadable

Qwen3-8B-EN

Text generation

Generates text for conversations and writing.

Source listed
Mar 30, 2026
Parameters
8B
4-bit weights only
≈ 4 GB
License
apache-2.0
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What changes with a 8GB budget?

With 2 GB set aside, 6 GB remains for weights. At 4-bit that allows up to 12 billion parameters in the theoretical calculation. An 8-billion-parameter model alone needs approximately 4 GB at this precision, before its conversation cache and runtime.

Why might a listed model still fail to load?

Its actual weight format may need more space, the runtime may not support its architecture, or the conversation cache may exceed your reserve. Vision models can also need space for image processing. Check the original model card and measure your exact setup before relying on it.

Read the memory guide and technical sources · Compare two models