Meta Llama 3 8B vs Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3
Side-by-side comparison of VRAM requirements, quantization, context length, and hardware compatibility.
Specifications
| Meta Llama 3 8B | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Parameters | 8.0B | 8.0B |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Architecture | — | LlamaForCausalLM |
| License | Llama 3 Community | Other |
| Downloads | 1.5M | 1.7K |
| Released | Sep 2024 | Oct 2025 |
VRAM by Quantization: Meta Llama 3 8B vs Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3
| Quantization | Bits | Meta Llama 3 8B VRAM | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3 VRAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q2_K | 3.40 | 3.8 GB | 4.0 GB |
| Q3_K_M | 3.90 | 4.3 GB | 4.5 GB |
| Q3_K_S | 3.50 | 3.9 GB | — |
| Q4_0 | 4.00 | 4.4 GB | — |
| Q4_K_M | 4.80 | 5.3 GB | 5.4 GB |
| Q5_K_M | 5.70 | 6.3 GB | 6.3 GB |
| Q6_K | 6.60 | 7.3 GB | 7.2 GB |
| Q8_0 | 8.00 | 8.8 GB | 8.6 GB |
Verdict
Meta Llama 3 8B needs less VRAM at Q4_K_M (5.3 GB vs 5.4 GB), so it fits on smaller GPUs. Meta Llama 3 8B is the more widely downloaded of the two.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Which needs less VRAM, Meta Llama 3 8B or Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3?
At Q4_K_M, Meta Llama 3 8B needs 5.3 GB and Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3 needs 5.4 GB, so Meta Llama 3 8B is the lighter option to run locally.
- What is the difference between Meta Llama 3 8B and Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3?
Meta Llama 3 8B is a 8.0B model from Meta (Llama 3 family), while Llama 3.1 Nemotron Safety Guard 8B v3 is a 8.0B model from NVIDIA (Llama 3 family). Compare their VRAM requirements above to see which fits your GPU or Mac.