Can Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct run on RTX 3080 12GB?

YES — Runs Great

C43Usable

Estimated from fit model

Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct needs ~3.5 GB VRAM. RTX 3080 12GB has 12.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~21 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: HighStack: BasicBottleneck: Balanced

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) — 3.5 GB, 21.0 tok/s, Runs well

3.5 GB required12.0 GB available

29% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

21.0 tok/s

TTFT

9219 ms

Safe context

791K

Memory

3.5 GB / 12.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights0.9 GB

KV Cache0.2 GB

Runtime1.2 GB

Headroom1.2 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsFalcon H1 1.5B Instruct on RTX 3080 12GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>What is local AI inference?
Local AI inference means running an AI language model directly on your own hardware — your laptop, desktop, or server — instead of sending requests to a remote cloud API.

When you run inference locally the model weights are loaded into your GPU or unified memory. Each token you generate requires reading those weights from memory, so memory bandwidth is the main bottleneck for decode speed.

Key benefits of running locally:
  - Full privacy: your prompts never leave your machine
  - No per-token cost or rate limits
  - Works offline once the model is downloaded
  - Latency depends only on your hardware
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>How much VRAM do I need?
It depends on the model size and quantization level. A rough rule of thumb:

  Model size     Q4 (4-bit)    Q8 (8-bit)    FP16
  7B params      ~4.3 GB       ~7.5 GB       ~14 GB
  13B params     ~7.9 GB       ~13.9 GB      ~26 GB
  70B params     ~42.7 GB      ~74.9 GB      ~140 GB

Most people use 4-bit quantization (Q4_K_M) which gives 90-95% of full quality at a fraction of the memory. A 24 GB GPU can comfortably run most 7B-13B models.
Estimated: 21.0 tok/s decode · 9.2s TTFT (warm) · 53 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

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.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	C	Runs well	21.0 tok/s	5029 ms	695K
Coding	C	Runs well	21.0 tok/s	9219 ms	791K
Agentic Coding	C	Runs well	21.0 tok/s	13410 ms	791K
Reasoning	C	Runs well	21.0 tok/s	10895 ms	791K
RAG	C	Runs well	21.0 tok/s	16762 ms	791K

Inference speed

Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct at Q4_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~29 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?
RTX 5090 32GB	32 GB	Q4_K_M	28.5	Fits
RTX 4090 24GB	24 GB	Q4_K_M	24.0	Fits
RTX 4080 Super 16GB	16 GB	Q4_K_M	24.0

Quantization options

How Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct (1.5B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 3080 12GB (12.0 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	0.6 GB	Low	C46
Q3_K_S	3	0.7 GB	Low	C46
NVFP4	4

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct on your machine.

Run

lms load hf-unsloth--falcon-h1-1-5b-instruct-gguf && lms server start

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct well

MacBook Pro M3 Pro 18GBBudget pick

18 GB Unified (+6)

This setup is broadly balanced for this model.21 tok/s decode

~$1,999 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

Can RTX 3080 12GB run Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct?

Yes, RTX 3080 12GB can run Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 21.0 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct need?

Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct (1.5B parameters) requires approximately 3.5 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct?

The recommended quantization for Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct run at on RTX 3080 12GB?

On RTX 3080 12GB, Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct achieves approximately 21.0 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 9219ms using Q4_K_M quantization.

Can RTX 3080 12GB run Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct for coding?

For coding workloads, Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct on RTX 3080 12GB receives a C grade with 21.0 tok/s and 791K context.

What context window can Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct use on RTX 3080 12GB?

On RTX 3080 12GB, Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct can safely use up to 791K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is —, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

See all results for RTX 3080 12GB See all hardware for Falcon H1 1.5B Instruct

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