1-bit Bonsai 27B needs ~7.5 GB VRAM. RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB has 12.0 GB. With Q1_0_G128 quantization, expect ~72 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
Fit status
Runs well
Decode
71.8 tok/s
TTFT
2698 ms
Safe context
90K
Memory
7.5 GB / 12.0 GB
This setup is broadly balanced for this model.
No major red flags
This recommendation has enough memory headroom and acceptable estimated speed for the selected workload.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | S | Runs well | 71.8 tok/s | 1472 ms | 90K |
| Coding | S | Runs well | 71.8 tok/s | 2698 ms | 90K |
| Agentic Coding | S | Runs well | 71.8 tok/s | 3924 ms | 90K |
| Reasoning | S | Runs well | 71.8 tok/s | 3188 ms | 90K |
| RAG | S | Runs well | 71.8 tok/s | 4905 ms | 90K |
Inference speed
Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for 1-bit Bonsai 27B at Q1_0_G128 across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~156 tok/s. Speed is memory-bandwidth bound, so cards that fit the whole model in VRAM run far faster than ones that offload to system RAM.
| GPU / Mac | Memory | Quant | Speed (tok/s) | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 156.1 | Fits | |
RX 7900 XTX 24GB | 24 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 132.5 | Fits |
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB | 256 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 123.5 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB | 128 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 122.1 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 122.1 | Fits |
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB | 128 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 102.9 | Fits |
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB | 128 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 97.6 | Fits |
| 24 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 89.7 | Fits | |
| 24 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 87.4 | Fits | |
| 16 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 86.1 | Fits | |
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB | 48 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 76.9 | Fits |
| 12 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 69.5 | Fits | |
| 12 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 53.3 | Fits | |
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 53.2 | Fits |
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB | 64 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 48.8 | Fits |
| 8 GB | Q1_0_G128 | 28.0 | Tight |
Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q1_0_G128; real tokens/sec varies with prompt length, context, batch size, and runtime build. Prompt processing (prefill) is faster than the decode figures shown here.
How 1-bit Bonsai 27B (27B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB (12.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q1_0_G128 | 1.125 | 3.9 GB | Very Low | S87 |
Q2_0_G128Best for your GPU | 1.71 | 7.2 GB | Low | S87 |
Q2_K | 2 | 10.5 GB | Low | F0 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 13.2 GB | Low | F0 |
NVFP4 | 4 | 15.1 GB | Medium | F0 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 16.5 GB | Medium | F0 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 19.4 GB | High | F0 |
Q6_K | 6 | 22.1 GB | High | F0 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 28.9 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 55.4 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Copy-paste commands to run 1-bit Bonsai 27B on your machine.
Run
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
--hf-repo "prism-ml/Bonsai-27B-gguf" \
--hf-file "Bonsai-27B-gguf-Q1_0_G128.gguf" \
-c 4096 -ngl 99Yes, RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB can run 1-bit Bonsai 27B with a S grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 71.8 tok/s.
1-bit Bonsai 27B (27B parameters) requires approximately 7.5 GB of memory with Q1_0_G128 quantization.
The recommended quantization for 1-bit Bonsai 27B is Q1_0_G128, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB, 1-bit Bonsai 27B achieves approximately 71.8 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 2698ms using Q1_0_G128 quantization.
For coding workloads, 1-bit Bonsai 27B on RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB receives a S grade with 71.8 tok/s and 90K context.
On RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB, 1-bit Bonsai 27B can safely use up to 90K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 262K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/bonsai-27b-on-rtx-3500-ada-laptop-12gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview: