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Can the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB) run ERNIE 4.5 21B-A3B Thinking?

58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, but slowly (tight fit)

Slow (tight fit). At Q3_K_M it needs about 12.9 GB of 13.6 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 7.4 tok/s.

Best quant
Q3_K_M
Generation speed
7.4 tok/s
Prompt processing
30.0 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
34.1 s
Largest safe context
20K

Best app to run it on the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB)

On Linux on ARM boards

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX

  • Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

Open ERNIE 4.5 21B-A3B Thinking in LM Studio

  • llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.
  • Ollama Runs the Hugging Face GGUF with ollama run hf.co/…

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download ERNIE 4.5 21B-A3B Thinking

Recommended for the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB): Q3_K_M. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

Download the Q3_K_M file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/ERNIE-4.5-21B-A3B-Thinking-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/unsloth/ERNIE-4.5-21B-A3B-Thinking-GGUF:Q3_K_M

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Baidu, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/baidu/ERNIE-4.5-21B-A3B-Thinking (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from Baidu. The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/PaddlePaddle/ERNIE (opens in a new tab)

git clone https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/ERNIE

Links checked 1 day ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q3_K_M, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Slowtight fit
How well it runs on the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB): speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.26.5 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when the model fits in the share of unified memory the GPU can use; fewer when it goes past that limit.24.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.6.4 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.15.0 / 15
Match score71.9 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB)

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q2_K 10.9 GB 13.6 GB 9.3 tok/s Slow 49Fair quality (C) · 49 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 12.9 GB 13.6 GB 7.4 tok/s Slowtight fit 58Good quality (B) · 58 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 15.5 GB 13.6 GB — Won't run 66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 8/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 17.7 GB 13.6 GB — Won't run 67Good quality (B) · 67 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 20.1 GB 13.6 GB — Won't run 69Good quality (B) · 69 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 25.3 GB 13.6 GB — Won't run 70Great quality (A) · 70 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 45.8 GB 13.6 GB — Won't run 70Great quality (A) · 70 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 9/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. GGUF (opens in a new tab) Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.

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