Best local AI models for GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB

The cheapest sensible entry into local AI. 12 GB of VRAM matters more than raw speed.

Specification

VRAM12 GB

Usable for models11 GB

System RAM16 GB

Bandwidth360 GB/s

Local trainingSupported

Operating systemswindows, linux

Runs well

26 models fit this machine

Estimated

Model	Params	Quantization	Memory	~tok/s	Fit	Fine-tune
Qwen2.5 Coder 7B Instruct	7.6B	Q6_K	6.8 GB	45	Good fit	Yes
Gemma 2 9B Instruct	9.2B	Q4_K_M	8.1 GB	50	Good fit	Yes
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	7.6B	Q6_K	6.8 GB	45	Good fit	Yes
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct	8B	Q6_K	7.7 GB	42	Good fit	Yes
Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3	7.25B	Q4_K_M	5.7 GB	64	Excellent fit	Yes
Qwen3 8B	8.2B	Q5_K_M	7.1 GB	48	Good fit	Yes
Code Llama 7B Instruct	6.7B	Q4_K_M	8.3 GB	69	Good fit	Yes
StarCoder2 15B	16B	Q4_K_M	10 GB	29	Tight fit	No
Mistral Nemo 12B Instruct	12.2B	Q4_K_M	9.1 GB	38	Tight fit	Yes
Qwen3 14B	14.8B	Q4_K_M	10 GB	31	Tight fit	No
Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct	3.8B	Q4_K_M	5.7 GB	121	Excellent fit	Yes
Gemma 3 4B Instruct	4.3B	Q5_K_M	4.7 GB	91	Excellent fit	Yes
Gemma 3 12B Instruct	12.2B	Q4_K_M	10 GB	38	Tight fit	Yes
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct	3.2B	Q8_0	4.6 GB	82	Excellent fit	Yes
Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct	32.8B	Q4_K_M	21 GB	14	Runs with CPU offload	No
Qwen2.5 32B Instruct	32.8B	Q4_K_M	21 GB	14	Runs with CPU offload	No
SmolLM2 1.7B Instruct	1.7B	F16	5.2 GB	82	Excellent fit	Yes
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B	32.8B	Q4_K_M	21 GB	14	Runs with CPU offload	No

Fine-tunable here

QLORA · 7.0 GB peak

QLORA · 8.2 GB peak

QLORA · 7.0 GB peak

QLORA · 7.2 GB peak

QLORA · 6.8 GB peak

QLORA · 7.4 GB peak

QLORA · 6.4 GB peak

QLORA · 10 GB peak

Out of reach