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Hardware guide · Llama

What hardware do you need to run Llama 3.1 8B?

Llama 3.1 8B needs about 6.4 GB to run at Q4_K_M, so the lightest hardware that runs it is iPhone 17 Pro. 33 of 40 devices tested can run it.

Needs (Q4_K_M)
~6.4 GB
Devices that run it
33
Too small
7
Lightest that runs it
~8 GB
Recommended Q4_K_M
Apple M2 (16GB) Yes

Runs at Q4_K_M using ~6.4 GB of ~10.5 GB usable. You have room for Q8_0 for higher quality.

What kind of hardware runs Llama 3.1 8B

Of the 33 devices that run it, here is the split by hardware class.

9 discrete GPUs 13 Macs 2 laptops 9 phones

Hardware that runs Llama 3.1 8B

Ranked by usable memory, lightest first. Prices are approximate street prices for the device itself (a GPU is the card alone; a Mac is the whole machine). Tok/s is a bandwidth estimate; see methodology.

Compatible devices 33 total

Too small for Llama 3.1 8B

Apple M1 (8GB) 8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only) iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Pro Generic Android Phone (8GB RAM) iPhone 17

See the full Llama 3.1 8B memory breakdown, or compare it against other models.

Sources

Memory at Q4_K_M (6.4 GB = 4.92 GB weights + KV cache + overhead), validated 2026-08-03. See methodology.