Granite 4.1 8B needs ~9.7 GB VRAM. RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB has 12.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~50 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
54.0 tok/s
TTFT
3583 ms
Safe context
31K
Memory
9.7 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 | A | Runs well | 54.0 tok/s | 1954 ms | 31K |
| Coding | A | Runs well | 50.3 tok/s | 3852 ms | 31K |
| Agentic Coding | A | Runs with offload (needs ~0.1 GB host RAM) | 39.4 tok/s | 7149 ms | 31K |
| Reasoning | A | Runs well | 54.0 tok/s | 4235 ms | 31K |
| RAG | A | Runs with offload (needs ~0.1 GB host RAM) | 39.4 tok/s | 8936 ms |
How Granite 4.1 8B (8B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB (12.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 3.1 GB | Low | A74 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 3.9 GB | Low | A75 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Granite 4.1 8B on your machine.
Run
ollama run granite4.1:8bYour hardware
| Model | Params | Grade | Decode | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9B | S | 48 tok/s | ||
| 14B | A | 18.5 tok/s |
Yes, RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB can run Granite 4.1 8B with a A grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 50.3 tok/s.
Granite 4.1 8B (8B parameters) requires approximately 9.7 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.
The recommended quantization for Granite 4.1 8B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.
On RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB, Granite 4.1 8B achieves approximately 50.3 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 3852ms using Q4_K_M quantization.
For coding workloads, Granite 4.1 8B on RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB receives a A grade with 50.3 tok/s and 31K context.
On RTX 3500 Ada Laptop 12GB, Granite 4.1 8B can safely use up to 31K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 131K, 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/granite-4.1-8b-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:
| 31K |
4.5 GB |
| Medium |
| A76 |
Q4_K_M | 4 | 4.9 GB | Medium | A76 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 5.8 GB | High | A77 |
Q6_K | 6 | 6.6 GB | High | A76 |
Q8_0Best for your GPU | 8 | 8.6 GB | Very High | A76 |
F16 | 16 | 16.4 GB | Maximum | F0 |
| 14B | A | 18.4 tok/s |
| 14B | A | 16.8 tok/s |
| 14B | B | 17.2 tok/s |