Used RTX 3060 12GB starter
£1,068
Parts
Compatibility: No problems found.Est. load 310 W of 650 W · spikes to 412 W
| Component | Selection | Price | Where | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB · 360 GB/s · 170 W | £299 | Amazon | Buy |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-12400F LGA1700 · 6 cores · 20 PCIe lanes | £130 | eBay | Buy |
| Motherboard | MSI PRO B760-P WiFi DDR4 LGA1700 · DDR4 · ATX | £157 | eBay | Buy |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2×16GB) DDR4-3600 32 GB · DDR4-3600 | £183 | eBay (used) | Buy |
| Power supply | MSI MAG A650BN 650W 650 W | £56 | eBay | Buy |
| Case | Corsair 4000D Airflow GPUs up to 360 mm | £63 | Amazon | Buy |
| Storage | Crucial P3 Plus 1TB 1000 GB NVME | £180 | eBay | Buy |
| Total | £1,068 | |||
- Note: Check the power connectors on the card you buy: this power supply has 0 12V-2x6 and 2 8-pin PCIe connectors.
- Note: Corsair 4000D Airflow fits graphics cards up to 360 mm: check the length of the card you buy.
What this build runs
The most precise quant that fits, at 8k context. Estimates, not measurements.
| Model | Quant | Fits | Memory | Max context | Decode @8k | Prefill | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 12B | Q6_K | fits | 10.3 GB | 59k100k with q8 cache | 22tok/sest. | 459 tok/s | chat, coding |
| Qwen 3.5 9B Alibaba Qwen | Q8_0 | fits | 9.9 GB | 47k79k with q8 cache | 23tok/sest. | 581 tok/s | chat, coding |
| Qwen3 14B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | fits | 10.4 GB | 14k26k with q8 cache | 22tok/sest. | 350 tok/s | chat |
| Ministral 3 14B Mistral AI | Q5_K_M | fits | 11.0 GB | 10k19k with q8 cache | 20tok/sest. | 377 tok/s | chat |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 Qwen3 8B DeepSeek | Q8_0 | fits | 10.0 GB | 17k32k with q8 cache | 23tok/sest. | 613 tok/s | chat |
| Qwen3 8B Alibaba Qwen | Q8_0 | fits | 10.0 GB | 17k32k with q8 cache | 23tok/sest. | 613 tok/s | chat |
| Phi-4 14B Microsoft | Q4_K_M | fits | 10.6 GB | 12k16k with q8 cache | 21tok/sest. | 353 tok/s | chat |
| Qwen 3.5 4B Alibaba Qwen | Q8_0 | fits | 5.2 GB | 174k256k with q8 cache | 47tok/sest. | 1169 tok/s | chat, coding, long documents |
| Ministral 3 8B Mistral AI | Q8_0 | fits | 10.2 GB | 16k29k with q8 cache | 22tok/sest. | 573 tok/s | chat |
| Granite 4.2 8B IBM | Q8_0 | fits | 10.7 GB | 12k22k with q8 cache | 21tok/sest. | 568 tok/s | chat |
| Gemma 4 E4B | Q8_0 | fits | 8.6 GB | 91k128k with q8 cache | 26tok/sest. | 704 tok/s | chat, coding |
| LFM2.5 8B-A1B Liquid AI | Q8_0 | fits | 9.5 GB | 43k75k with q8 cache | 91tok/sest. | 4107 tok/s | chat, coding |
| Llama 3.1 8B Meta | Q6_K | fits | 7.9 GB | 34k63k with q8 cache | 29tok/sest. | 633 tok/s | chat, coding |
| Qwen2.5 0.5B Alibaba Qwen | Q8_0 | fits | 1.3 GB | 32k | 353tok/sest. | 8595 tok/s | chat, coding, long documents |
| Qwen3.5 0.8B Alibaba Qwen | Q8_0 | fits | 1.6 GB | 256k | 240tok/sest. | 5913 tok/s | chat, coding, agents, long documents |
| Qwen3.5 2B Alibaba Qwen | Q5_K_M | fits | 2.2 GB | 256k | 144tok/sest. | 2426 tok/s | chat, coding, agents, long documents |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B DeepSeek | Q8_0 | fits | 2.7 GB | 128k | 105tok/sest. | 2705 tok/s | chat, coding, long documents |
| MiniCPM5 2B openbmb | Q8_0 | fits | 3.6 GB | 128k | 74tok/sest. | 1788 tok/s | chat, coding, agents, long documents |
| LFM2.5 2.6B Liquid AI | Q8_0 | fits | 3.9 GB | 124k128k with q8 cache | 66tok/sest. | 1800 tok/s | chat, coding, agents, long documents |
| LFM2.5 VL 3B Liquid AI | Q8_0 | fits | 3.9 GB | 32k | 66tok/sest. | 1588 tok/s | chat, coding, agents, long documents |
| granite vision 4.1 4b IBM | Q8_0 | fits | 4.7 GB | 87k128k with q8 cache | 52tok/sest. | 1191 tok/s | chat, coding |
| granite 4.2 3b IBM | Q8_0 | fits | 5.0 GB | 84k128k with q8 cache | 49tok/sest. | 1280 tok/s | chat, coding, agents |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 7B DeepSeek | Q8_0 | fits | 8.7 GB | 52k90k with q8 cache | 26tok/sest. | 683 tok/s | chat, coding |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 8B DeepSeek | Q8_0 | fits | 9.7 GB | 20k37k with q8 cache | 23tok/sest. | 633 tok/s | chat |
| Ministral 3 8B Reasoning 2512 Mistral AI | Q8_0 | fits | 10.2 GB | 16k29k with q8 cache | 22tok/sest. | 573 tok/s | chat |
| GLM 4.6V Flash Z.ai | Q8_0 | fits | 10.4 GB | 30k52k with q8 cache | 22tok/sest. | 495 tok/s | chat |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 14B DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | fits | 10.6 GB | 12k22k with q8 cache | 21tok/sest. | 343 tok/s | chat |
| Qwen 3.8 27B Alibaba Qwen | UD-Q4_K_M | offload | 16.7 GB | – | 5tok/sest. | 161 tok/s | – |
| Qwen 3.6 27B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | offload | 17.0 GB | – | 4tok/sest. | 160 tok/s | – |
| Gemma 4 31B | Q4_K_M | offload | 19.2 GB | – | 3tok/sest. | 131 tok/s | – |
| Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B Alibaba Qwen | MXFP4 | offload | 21.2 GB | – | 18tok/sest. | 1231 tok/s | chat |
| Qwen 3.5 27B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | offload | 17.0 GB | – | 5tok/sest. | 160 tok/s | – |
| Gemma 4 26B-A4B | UD-Q4_K_M | offload | 16.9 GB | – | 16tok/sest. | 1048 tok/s | chat |
| Qwen 3.5 35B-A3B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | offload | 21.5 GB | – | 18tok/sest. | 1224 tok/s | chat |
| GLM 4.7 Flash Z.ai | Q4_K_M | offload | 18.2 GB | – | 12tok/sest. | 740 tok/s | – |
| Devstral Small 2 24B Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.3 GB | – | 6tok/sest. | 190 tok/s | – |
| Nemotron 3.5 Lightning 30B-A3B NVIDIA | UD-Q6_K_XL | offload | 33.4 GB | – | 8tok/sest. | 1072 tok/s | – |
| gpt-oss 20B OpenAI | Q4_K_M | offload | 11.8 GB | – | 45tok/sest. | 1225 tok/s | chat, coding |
| Qwen3 Coder 30B-A3B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | offload | 18.8 GB | – | 16tok/sest. | 943 tok/s | chat |
| Kimi Linear 48B-A3B Moonshot AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 28.8 GB | – | 16tok/sest. | 1030 tok/s | chat |
| Qwen3 32B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | offload | 21.2 GB | – | 3tok/sest. | 111 tok/s | – |
| Mistral Small 3.2 24B Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.3 GB | – | 6tok/sest. | 190 tok/s | – |
| Gemma 3 27B | Q4_K_M | offload | 17.2 GB | – | 4tok/sest. | 161 tok/s | – |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | offload | 21.2 GB | – | 3tok/sest. | 116 tok/s | – |
| Mellum2.1 12B A2.5B Thinking JetBrains | Q6_K | offload | 11.6 GB | – | 49tok/sest. | 1961 tok/s | chat, coding, agents |
| Kimi VL A3B Moonshot AI | mlx-5bit | offload | 12.0 GB | – | 43tok/sest. | 1614 tok/s | chat, coding |
| LFM2.5 24B A2B Liquid AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.7 GB | – | 27tok/sest. | 1786 tok/s | chat |
| GLM 4.1V 9B Thinking Z.ai | mlx-8bit | offload | 12.0 GB | – | 14tok/sest. | 479 tok/s | – |
| Devstral Small 2507 Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.3 GB | – | 6tok/sest. | 194 tok/s | – |
| Magistral Small 2506 Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.3 GB | – | 6tok/sest. | 194 tok/s | – |
| Magistral Small 2507 Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.3 GB | – | 6tok/sest. | 194 tok/s | – |
| Magistral Small 2509 Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | offload | 15.3 GB | – | 6tok/sest. | 190 tok/s | – |
| granite 4.2 30b IBM | Q4_K_M | offload | 19.5 GB | – | 3tok/sest. | 136 tok/s | – |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash DeepSeek | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 91.6 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 5.3 Flash Z.ai | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 102.2 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Qwen 3.8 Flash Next Alibaba Qwen | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 74.5 GB | – | – | – | – |
| MiniMax M2.7 MiniMax | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 72.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Qwen 3.5 122B-A10B Alibaba Qwen | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 40.0 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B NVIDIA | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 51.9 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Qwen3 Coder Next Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | won't run | 46.2 GB | – | – | – | – |
| gpt-oss 120B OpenAI | Q4_K_M | won't run | 59.5 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Mistral Small 4 119B Mistral AI | UD-Q2_K_XL | won't run | 38.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 4.5 Air Z.ai | Q2_K | won't run | 44.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Qwen3 Next 80B-A3B Alibaba Qwen | Q4_K_M | won't run | 46.2 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Llama 3.3 70B Meta | Q4_K_M | won't run | 42.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek R1 DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | won't run | 377.9 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek R1 0528 DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | won't run | 378.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | won't run | 42.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek V3 0324 DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | won't run | 377.9 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek V3.1 DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | won't run | 378.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek V3.2 DeepSeek | Q4_K_M | won't run | 378.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 DeepSeek | MXFP4 | won't run | 147.1 GB | – | – | – | – |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp DeepSeek | MXFP4 | won't run | 155.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Devstral 2 123B Instruct 2512 Mistral AI | Q8_0 | won't run | 127.2 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 4.5V Z.ai | Q4_K_M | won't run | 61.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 4.6V Z.ai | Q4_K_M | won't run | 67.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 4.7 Z.ai | Q4_K_M | won't run | 205.2 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 5.1 Z.ai | MXFP4 | won't run | 421.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 5.2 Z.ai | UD-Q4_K_M | won't run | 435.3 GB | – | – | – | – |
| GLM 5.3 Z.ai | Q8_0 | won't run | 747.8 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Kimi K2 Moonshot AI | Q4_K_M | won't run | 579.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Kimi K2 Instruct 0905 Moonshot AI | Q4_K_M | won't run | 579.9 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Kimi K2 Thinking Moonshot AI | Q4_K_M | won't run | 579.9 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Kimi K2.5 Moonshot AI | Q4_K_M | won't run | 579.9 GB | – | – | – | – |
| MiniMax M2 MiniMax | Q4_K_M | won't run | 131.5 GB | – | – | – | – |
| MiniMax M2.1 MiniMax | Q4_K_M | won't run | 131.5 GB | – | – | – | – |
| MiniMax M2.5 MiniMax | MXFP4 | won't run | 118.0 GB | – | – | – | – |
| MiniMax M3 MiniMax | UD-Q4_K_M | won't run | 248.4 GB | – | – | – | – |
| Mistral Medium 3.5 128B Mistral AI | Q4_K_M | won't run | 73.3 GB | – | – | – | – |