Can Apertus v1.5 8B run on RTX 3060 12GB?

YES — Runs Great

A79Great

Estimated from fit model

Apertus v1.5 8B needs ~9.5 GB VRAM. RTX 3060 12GB has 12.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~40 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: LowStack: StandardBottleneck: 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) — 9.5 GB, 39.5 tok/s, Runs well

9.5 GB required12.0 GB available

79% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

39.5 tok/s

TTFT

4899 ms

Safe context

37K

Memory

9.5 GB / 12.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights5.4 GB

KV Cache2.0 GB

Runtime0.9 GB

Headroom1.2 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsApertus v1.5 8B on RTX 3060 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: 39.5 tok/s decode · 4.9s TTFT (warm) · 99 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	A	Runs well	39.5 tok/s	2672 ms	37K
Coding	A	Runs well	39.5 tok/s	4899 ms	37K
Agentic Coding	A	Runs with offload	39.5 tok/s	7126 ms	37K
Reasoning	A	Runs well	39.5 tok/s	5790 ms	37K
RAG	A	Runs with offload	39.5 tok/s	8907 ms	37K

Inference speed

Apertus v1.5 8B inference speed — tokens per second by GPU & Mac

Estimated decode speed (tokens/sec) for Apertus v1.5 8B at Q4_K_M across popular GPUs and Apple Silicon, using the fastest local runtime per device. Fastest is RTX 5090 32GB at ~169 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	169.1	Fits
RTX 4090 24GB	24 GB	Q4_K_M	139.6	Fits
RX 7900 XTX 24GB	24 GB	Q4_K_M	124.6	Fits
RTX 4080 Super 16GB	16 GB	Q4_K_M	111.3	Fits
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 256GB	256 GB	Q4_K_M	110.3	Fits
RTX 3090 24GB	24 GB	Q4_K_M	106.8	Fits
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128GB	128 GB	Q4_K_M	91.9	Fits
Mac Studio M1 Ultra 128GB	128 GB	Q4_K_M	87.1	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 128GB	128 GB	Q4_K_M	74.2	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q4_K_M	74.2	Fits
RTX 4070 12GB	12 GB	Q4_K_M	68.9	Fits
MacBook Pro M3 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q4_K_M	47.5	Fits
MacBook Pro M1 Max 64GB	64 GB	Q4_K_M	43.6	Fits
RTX 3060 12GB	12 GB	Q4_K_M	39.5	Fits
MacBook Pro M4 Pro 48GB	48 GB	Q4_K_M	38.3	Fits
RTX 4060 8GB	8 GB	Q4_K_M	20.8	Heavy offload

Estimates for single-stream decoding at Q4_K_M; real tokens/sec varies with prompt length, context, batch size, and runtime build. Prompt processing (prefill) is faster than the decode figures shown here.

Quantization options

How Apertus v1.5 8B (8.899999618530273B params) fits at each quantization level on RTX 3060 12GB (12.0 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q1_0_G128	1.125	1.3 GB	Very Low	A72
Q2_0_G128	1.71	2.4 GB	Low	A73
Q2_K	2	3.5 GB	Low	A74
Q3_K_S	3	4.4 GB	Low	A76
NVFP4	4	5.0 GB	Medium	A76
Q4_K_M	4	5.4 GB	Medium	A77
Q5_K_M	5	6.4 GB	High	A77
Q6_KBest for your GPU	6	7.3 GB	High	A76
Q8_0	8	9.5 GB	Very High	F0
F16	16	18.2 GB	Maximum	F0

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Apertus v1.5 8B on your machine.

Run

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \
  --hf-repo "swiss-ai/Apertus-v1.5-8B" \
  --hf-file "Apertus-v1.5-8B-Q4_K_M.gguf" \
  -c 4096 -ngl 99

Your hardware

More models your RTX 3060 12GB can run

Model	Params	Grade	Decode
Qwen 3.5 9B	9B	S	39.9 tok/s
Ternary Bonsai 27B	27B	S	17.5 tok/s
Phi-4-reasoning-plus 14B	14.7B	B	14.6 tok/s
Qwen 3 14B	14B	A	18.4 tok/s
1-bit Bonsai 27B	27B	S	35.9 tok/s

Frequently asked questions

Can RTX 3060 12GB run Apertus v1.5 8B?

Yes, RTX 3060 12GB can run Apertus v1.5 8B with a A grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 39.5 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Apertus v1.5 8B need?

Apertus v1.5 8B (8.899999618530273B parameters) requires approximately 9.5 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Apertus v1.5 8B?

The recommended quantization for Apertus v1.5 8B is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Apertus v1.5 8B run at on RTX 3060 12GB?

On RTX 3060 12GB, Apertus v1.5 8B achieves approximately 39.5 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 4899ms using Q4_K_M quantization.

Can RTX 3060 12GB run Apertus v1.5 8B for coding?

For coding workloads, Apertus v1.5 8B on RTX 3060 12GB receives a A grade with 39.5 tok/s and 37K context.

What context window can Apertus v1.5 8B use on RTX 3060 12GB?

On RTX 3060 12GB, Apertus v1.5 8B can safely use up to 37K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 262K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

See all results for RTX 3060 12GB See all hardware for Apertus v1.5 8B

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