VRAM Needed to Run Local LLMs: 7B to 70B Guide

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:26:30 +0000

To run a local large language model (LLM) comfortably on your own hardware, you need between 6 GB of VRAM for an entry-level 7B or 8B model up to 48 GB of VRAM for a flagship 70B model at standard 4-bit quantization. Memory capacity is the single most critical bottleneck in local AI: if a model exceeds your dedicated video memory, inference either crashes with an Out of Memory (OOM) error or offloads partially to system RAM, causing generation speed to collapse by 80% to 95%.

Llama 3 on NV Trends

VRAM Needed to Run Local LLMs: 7B to 70B Guide