What Can I Run Locally?

A rough, rule-of-thumb guide to which local AI model sizes your hardware can realistically handle.

Available system RAM (GB)

I have a dedicated GPU

What you can likely run

On CPU / system RAM

Large models

Roughly up to 22B parameters — near top-tier open models, best with a capable GPU.

at 8-bit quantization: ~11B
at 4-bit quantization: ~22B

These figures use widely cited rule-of-thumb approximations (~1GB per billion parameters at 8-bit, ~0.5GB per billion at 4-bit, with headroom reserved for context and the OS) — not precise specifications. Actual usable size depends on the model architecture, context length, quantization method and software you use.