granite 4.2 3b

• Cheapest

  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

  49tok/sest.Q8_0

  309 €

• Best value

  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB

  103tok/sest.Q8_0

  500 €

• Fastest

  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

  243tok/sest.Q8_0

  6.028 €

• Mac

  Mac mini M4 16GB

  17tok/sest.Q8_0

  800 €

• Q4_K_M
  • Ollamaollama run hf.co/bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q4_K_M
  • LM Studiolms get bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF@q4_k_m
  • llama.cppllama-server -hf bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q4_K_M
• Q5_K_M
  • Ollamaollama run hf.co/bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q5_K_M
  • LM Studiolms get bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF@q5_k_m
  • llama.cppllama-server -hf bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q5_K_M
• Q6_K
  • Ollamaollama run hf.co/bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q6_K
  • LM Studiolms get bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF@q6_k
  • llama.cppllama-server -hf bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q6_K
• Q8_0
  • Ollamaollama run hf.co/bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q8_0
  • LM Studiolms get bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF@q8_0
  • llama.cppllama-server -hf bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q8_0

Native context is 128K, and the card also claims a long-context extension to 512K; its serving examples use 131072. The vLLM reasoning parser needs vLLM v0.20+ (or SGLang v0.5.18+), and the recommended sampling is temperature=1.0 and top_p=0.95.

How much VRAM does granite 4.2 3b need?

At Q4_K_M, granite 4.2 3b needs about 4 GB of memory at 8k context and 4 GB at 8k, counting the weights, the KV cache and runtime buffers.

What is the best GPU for running granite 4.2 3b locally?

The cheapest hardware in Germany that runs granite 4.2 3b fully in memory at 8k context is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB, 309 € at Amazon, at about 49 tok/s (estimated). The best value is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB (about 103 tok/s for 500 €). The fastest we price is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, at about 243 tok/s.

Can I run granite 4.2 3b on a 16 GB GPU?

Yes: at Q8_0 it fits fully in 16 GB at 8k context. On the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 it runs at about 130 tok/s (estimated).

Can I run granite 4.2 3b on a 24 GB GPU?

Yes: at Q8_0 it fits fully in 24 GB at 8k context. On the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti it runs at about 137 tok/s (estimated).

How do I run granite 4.2 3b locally?

With Ollama: ollama run hf.co/bartowski/granite-4.2-3b-GGUF:Q4_K_M (the Q4_K_M build). LM Studio and llama.cpp commands are on this page.

What licence is granite 4.2 3b released under?

Apache 2.0, which allows commercial use.