# Ministral 3 3B: RAM and VRAM requirements

> Ministral 3 3B is a 3B Mistral model. At Q4_K_M it needs about **3.2 GB** to run and fits **43 of 43** tracked devices. Minimum to run: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB).

Last validated: 2026-09-07. Sources: Ollama, HuggingFace GGUF repos, vendor specs.

## Memory by quantization
| Quant | On disk | To run (4k context) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Q4_K_M | 2 GB | ~3.2 GB |
| Q8_0 | 3.4 GB | ~4.6 GB |
| FP16 | 7.71 GB | ~8.9 GB |

Memory = weights + KV cache + ~0.8 GB runtime overhead, and varies ±15% with context length.

## Will it run on my device?
- **Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB)** (6 GB): Yes, it runs (room for Q8_0)
- **Generic Android Phone (8GB RAM)** (8 GB): Yes, it runs
- **Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra** (12 GB): Yes, it runs (room for Q8_0)
- **Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (16GB)** (16 GB): Yes, it runs (room for FP16)
- **Apple M5 (16GB)** (16 GB): Yes, it runs (room for FP16)
- **Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB)** (24 GB): Yes, it runs (room for FP16)
- **Apple M4 Pro (48GB)** (48 GB): Yes, it runs (room for FP16)
- **Apple M3 Ultra (256GB)** (256 GB): Yes, it runs (room for FP16)

Full table of all 43 devices: https://localmodel.run/model/ministral-3-3b

## How to run
Quickest path: `ollama run ministral-3:3b`. On Mac, LM Studio (ships MLX) is fastest; on Linux, Ollama for chat or vLLM to serve; on Windows, LM Studio or Ollama.

## Details
- Parameters: 3B
- Default context: 256k tokens
- License: Apache-2.0 (commercial use: yes)
- Released: 2025-12
- HuggingFace: 311,111 downloads/mo, 278 likes

## FAQ
### How much VRAM or RAM does Ministral 3 3B need?
About 3.2 GB at Q4_K_M (weights 2 GB + KV cache + overhead) at a 4k context. Budget ~4.6 GB for Q8_0.
### Can Ministral 3 3B run on a laptop?
Yes. Ministral 3 3B fits on a 16 GB laptop or Mac at Q4_K_M, and runs on Apple Silicon or a 12 GB+ GPU comfortably.
### Can I use Ministral 3 3B commercially?
Yes, Apache-2.0 permits commercial use.

Sources: https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512, https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-GGUF, https://ollama.com/library/ministral-3/tags
More: https://localmodel.run/model/ministral-3-3b