Can I run it?
Can I run Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct on GeForce RTX 3060 12GB?
Tight fit
Tight fit fully on your GeForce RTX 3060 12GB at Q8_0, 8K context, about 20–27 tok/s. Weights 8.11 GB plus 1.13 GB of KV cache — 9.62 GB of 10.9 GB usable.
Best quantQ8_0
Working context8K
Max that fits8K
Speed20–27 tok/s
Weights8.11 GB
KV cache1.13 GB
Total9.62 GB
Usable10.9 GB
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct details · GeForce RTX 3060 12GB page · How this estimate is made
Run commands
llama.cpp
llama-server -hf unsloth/Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct-GGUF:Q8_0 -c 8192 -ngl 36
Ollama
ollama run qwen3
LM Studio
lms get unsloth/Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct-GGUF # Then load quant Q8_0
Assumptions
- Estimate, not a benchmark. Decode speed uses a memory-bandwidth model at 55–75% of peak.
- KV cache is FP16. Engine overhead assumes llama.cpp (0.3 GB + 1% of the weights). Ollama is closer to 0.9 GB + 3%, LM Studio closer to 1 GB + 3%.
- Q8_0 size is the real GGUF file size from Hugging Face.
- 0.5 GB is reserved because this GPU also drives a display, then 5% of the rest is left free.
- Speed is quoted at 8K context, not at the maximum context that still fits.
Larger models that also fit
- Can I run Qwen3.8 27B on GeForce RTX 3060 12GB? — Tight fit, UD-Q2_K_XL, 19–26 tok/s
- Can I run gemma 4 12b it on GeForce RTX 3060 12GB? — Tight fit, Q6_K, 15–21 tok/s
- Can I run Qwen3.5 9B on GeForce RTX 3060 12GB? — Tight fit, Q8_0, 20–28 tok/s
Updated 2026-10-17. Profile on this page is the device default plus 32 GB of DDR5-5600 system RAM.