text model · Nemotron 3 · Windows
Can I run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)?
No. Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B needs ~25.1 GB even at Q4_K_M, but Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) only has ~11 GB usable.
Needs ~25.1 GB even at Q4_K_M, but only ~11 GB is usable.
That figure is at a 4k context and moves about ±15% as context length changes.
The gap is about 14.1 GB: Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B needs roughly 25.1 GB at Q4_K_M and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) leaves only about 11 GB usable for a model. The lightest tracked hardware that runs Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB) at 32 GB. See Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (32GB).
- Q4_K_M needed
- ~25.1 GB
- Usable on device
- ~11 GB
- Device memory
- 12 GB
Which quant fits
- Parameters
- 30B (MoE, 3B active)
- Q4_K_M size
- 23.03 GB
- Q8_0 size
- 31.28 GB
- Context
- 256k
- Ollama tag
- nemotron-cascade-2:30b
- Memory
- 12 GB vram
- Usable for weights
- ~11 GB
- Power draw
- ~170 W
- Best runtime
- Ollama (CUDA) / llama.cpp CUDA
What you can run instead
Run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on other hardware
FAQ
Can Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B?
No. Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B needs ~25.1 GB even at Q4_K_M, but Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) only has ~11 GB usable.
How much memory does Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B need?
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) does not have enough memory. At Q4_K_M the weights are ~23.03 GB; with KV cache and runtime overhead, budget ~25.1 GB at a 4k context. It is a Mixture-of-Experts model (30B total / 3B active), so all experts must stay in memory; memory tracks total params, not active params.
What is the best tool to run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on Windows?
LM Studio for a simple setup; Ollama (CUDA) for the most speed. AMD GPUs run via Vulkan/ROCm at roughly half CUDA throughput. NVIDIA is the smooth path on Windows.
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A live badge for your model card or README, updated as the data is. [](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/nemotron-cascade-2-30b-a3b/nvidia-rtx-3060-12gb) Sources
Weights are measured from GGUF files; KV cache and overhead are computed, so totals can vary ~15% with context and runtime. Any tok/s is a bandwidth estimate. See methodology.