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Can the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB run SmolLM 135M Instruct?

43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.9/15

Yes, it runs well

Runs well. At F16 it needs about 1.5 GB of 12.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 798 tok/s.

Best quant
F16
Generation speed
798 tok/s
Prompt processing
70,338 tok/s
First token (1K prompt)
0.3 s
Largest safe context
2K

Download SmolLM 135M Instruct

Recommended for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB: F16. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

ollama run smollm:135m-instruct-v0.2-fp16

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

Quantized files · GGUF

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

huggingface.co/QuantFactory/SmolLM-135M-Instruct-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/QuantFactory/SmolLM-135M-Instruct-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/HuggingFaceTB/SmolLM-135M-Instruct (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 7 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How the C grade is scored

Every result gets up to 100 points from four parts. The points decide the letter grade.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.0.9 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU or unified memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.2.9 / 15
Total43.8 / 10043 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.9/15

Grade scale: S 85+ · A 72+ · B 58+ · C 42+ · D 25+ · F under 25 points.

Every quantization on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Fit Grade · points Download
Q2_K 1.3 GB 12.0 GB 5,583 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.6/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.5/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q3_K_M 1.3 GB 12.0 GB 4,395 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.8/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.5/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q4_K_M 1.3 GB 12.0 GB 3,399 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.6/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 1.3 GB 12.0 GB 2,808 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.6/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 1.4 GB 12.0 GB 2,359 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.6/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 1.4 GB 12.0 GB 1,731 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.7/15 GGUF (opens in a new tab)
F16 1.5 GB 12.0 GB 798 tok/s Runs well 43 ptsUsable (C) · 43 of 100 points: Model quality 0.9/45, Memory fit 25.0/25, Speed 15.0/15, Memory use 2.9/15 Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 2K 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.