Can the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB) run Z-Image?

Barely: it runs very slowly (tight fit)

Very slow (tight fit). At Q8 GGUF it needs about 13.0 GB of 13.6 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 59.3 min.

Best precision: Q8 GGUF
Memory mode: Everything on GPU
Time per image: 59.3 min
Output: 1024×1024, 50 steps

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

On Linux on ARM boards

ComfyUI

Desktop app · runs on PyTorch (ComfyUI), GGUF via ComfyUI-GGUF

Runs this model with built-in or popular custom nodes; GGUF files load with ComfyUI-GGUF.

Get ComfyUI

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 Z-Image

Recommended for the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB): q8_gguf. Every other precision has its own download link in the table below.

Quantized files · GGUF for ComfyUI

Smaller GGUF versions for ComfyUI (with the ComfyUI-GGUF node). No sign-in needed; the model’s license still applies.

Download the q8_gguf (Q8_0) file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/unsloth/Z-Image-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Alibaba (Tongyi), for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers, Diffusers or ComfyUI.

huggingface.co/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Official repo · GitHub

Reference code, inference scripts and docs from Alibaba (Tongyi). The weights themselves download from Hugging Face.

github.com/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image (opens in a new tab)

git clone https://github.com/Tongyi-MAI/Z-Image

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

How it’s rated

Quality 81Great quality (A) · 81 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q8 GGUF, 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 Very 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.	36.5 / 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.	23.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	0.8 / 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 score	75.3 / 100

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

Every precision on the Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB)

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Memory mode	Runs	Quality	Download
`FP16`	6.5 GB	13.6 GB	67.0 min	Sequential CPU offload	Very slowCPU offload	82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)
`FP8`	12.6 GB	13.6 GB	46.4 min	Everything on GPU	Very slowtight fit	80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)
`Q8 GGUF`	13.0 GB	13.6 GB	59.3 min	Everything on GPU	Very slowtight fit	81Great quality (A) · 81 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4 GGUF`	10.1 GB	13.6 GB	61.8 min	Everything on GPU	Very slow	76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4 GGUF, whatever it runs on. Match score 75/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)

Other hardware that runs it

82Great quality (A) · 82 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 FP16 · 14 s · Runs well
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT FP8 · 20 s · Runs well
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 FP8 · 20 s · Runs well
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 86/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER FP8 · 22 s · Runs well
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER FP8 · 24 s · Runs well
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 85/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti FP8 · 25 s · Runs well

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.