NVIDIA · Ampere

Best AI Models for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU (4 GB)

Runs only small models well; 7–9B doesn't fit in 4 GB.

4 GB GDDR6192 GB/s14 TFLOPS FP1680 WAmpere 2021

Laptop RTX 3050 has 4 GB (not the desktop 8 GB), so only ~3B-class Q4 models fit fully on the GPU. Performance varies strongly with the chassis power limit (35-80 W).

What LLMs can the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU run?

#	Model	Speed	Quant · VRAM
1	Qwen3.5 4BAlibabaHow to run → Q4_K_M · 3.4 GB · 38.3 t/s	38.3 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 3.4 GB
2	MiniCPM5 2BOpenBMB Q4_K_M · 2.5 GB · 65.7 t/s	65.7 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.5 GB
3	Gemma 4 E2B ITGoogle Q4_K_M · 3.5 GB · 36.4 t/s	36.4 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 3.5 GB
4	LFM3 1.7BLiquid AI Q4_K_M · 2.1 GB · 86.7 t/s	86.7 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.1 GB
5	LFM3 Omni 2BLiquid AI Q4_K_M · 2.4 GB · 73.4 t/s	73.4 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.4 GB

#	Model	Speed ↓	Quant · VRAM
1	Qwen3.5 4BAlibabaHow to run → Q4_K_M · 3.4 GB · 38.3 t/s	38.3 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 3.4 GB
2	LFM3 1.7BLiquid AI Q4_K_M · 2.1 GB · 86.7 t/s	86.7 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.1 GB
3	LFM3 Omni 2BLiquid AI Q4_K_M · 2.4 GB · 73.4 t/s	73.4 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.4 GB
4	MiniCPM5 2BOpenBMB Q4_K_M · 2.5 GB · 65.7 t/s	65.7 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.5 GB
5	Gemma 4 E2B ITGoogle Q4_K_M · 3.5 GB · 36.4 t/s	36.4 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 3.5 GB

#	Model	Speed	Quant · VRAM
1	Qwen3.5 4BAlibabaHow to run → Q4_K_M · 3.4 GB · 38.3 t/s	38.3 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 3.4 GB
2	LFM3 Omni 2BLiquid AI Q4_K_M · 2.4 GB · 73.4 t/s	73.4 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 2.4 GB
3	MiniCPM V 4.7 1BOpenBMB Q4_K_M · 1.6 GB · 97.5 t/s	97.5 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 1.6 GB
4	Qwen3.5 2BAlibaba Q4_K_M · 1.9 GB · 70.5 t/s	70.5 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 1.9 GB
5	Cosmos Reason2 2BNVIDIA Q4_K_M · 3.5 GB · 77.5 t/s	77.5 tok/s	Q4_K_M · 3.5 GB

See all 151 models on the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU →Best quant that fits · speeds estimated on this card

About the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU

The RTX 3050 Laptop GPU runs only small models well. Ampere generation, released 2021.

GenerationAmperereleased 2021

RTX 3050 Laptop GPU strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

Low power draw: 80 W board power; a 200 W PSU is enough

Weaknesses

7–9B models don't fit: Qwen3.5 9B needs 6.6 GB at Q4 vs 4 GB here
Slow prompt reading: A 4K-token prompt on Qwen3.5 4B waits 6.0 s for the first token
No FP8 or NVFP4: Ampere predates both; use GGUF, AWQ or GPTQ builds

Similar GPUs

Cards people weigh against the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU, each with the one reason it is worth a look.

2 GB more for bigger modelsGTX 1660 SUPERNVIDIA · 6 GB · Turing

▲ 2 GB$22939.6 tok/s

4 GB more for bigger modelsA750Intel · 8 GB · Alchemist

▲ 4 GB$28940.3 tok/s

4 GB more for bigger modelsA580Intel · 8 GB · Alchemist

▲ 4 GB$17940.3 tok/s

4 GB more for bigger modelsA770 8GBIntel · 8 GB · Alchemist

▲ 4 GB$32940.3 tok/s

4 GB more for bigger modelsRTX 3060 TiNVIDIA · 8 GB · Ampere

▲ 4 GB$399rent $0.11/hr45.8 tok/s

4 GB more for bigger modelsRTX 3070NVIDIA · 8 GB · Ampere

▲ 4 GB$499rent $0.08/hr45.8 tok/s

RTX 3050 Laptop GPU tokens per second by model size

Output speed depends on memory bandwidth (192 GB/s). Grey rows need more than 4 GB.

9BQwen3.5 9B · not at 4-bit
needs 6.6 GB
14BQwen3 14B · not at 4-bit
needs 11.9 GB
27–31BQwen3.8 27B · not at 4-bit
needs 17.9 GB
35B MoEQwen3.6 35B A3B · not at 4-bit
needs 22.0 GB
70BLlama 3.3 70B Instruct · not at 4-bit
needs 51.3 GB
120B MoEGPT OSS 120B · not at 4-bit
needs 70.8 GB

Estimated speeds: Q4_K_M, 4K context, one user. How we estimate

All 562 models on the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU

Featured only

Best quant that fits, ordered by llmrun Score. Fit grades how well it runs here, S best. How ranking works

LLM models compatible with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU — ranked by Score, recency and Fit
Model	Quant	VRAM	Speed	Context	Fit
Qwen2.5 1.5B Instruct1.5BChat Q4_K_M·126.1 t/s	Q4_K_M	2.6 GB65%	126.1 t/s	—	S95, Runs great
Nafie 473M473MChat BF16·120.0 t/s	BF16	1.0 GB26%	120.0 t/s	1K	S95, Runs great
Granite 4.1 3B3.4BChatFunctions Q4_K_M·49.7 t/s	Q4_K_M	3.7 GB92%	49.7 t/s	131K	B62, Decent
DeepSeek OCR 23.4BVision Q4_K_M·131.5 t/s	Q4_K_M	2.8 GB71%	131.5 t/s	8K	S95, Runs great
Granite Vision 4.1 4B4.0BVisionFunctions Q3_K_M·51.6 t/s	Q3_K_M	3.6 GB90%	51.6 t/s	131K	A66, Runs well
Baguettotron321MChat Q4_K_M·201.3 t/s	Q4_K_M	0.8 GB19%	201.3 t/s	4K	S100, Runs great
LFM2.5 1.2B Instruct Uncensored1.2BChat Q4_K_M·116.6 t/s	Q4_K_M	1.2 GB31%	116.6 t/s	128K	S94, Runs great
Nandi Mini V1.1 600M Intermediate Checkpoint 400GT649MChat BF16·70.1 t/s	BF16	1.8 GB45%	70.1 t/s	2K	S86, Runs great
Phi Tiny MoE Instruct3.8BChat Q4_K_M·105.1 t/s	Q4_K_M	3.1 GB77%	105.1 t/s	4K	S92, Runs great
Qwen3 0.6B Heretic Abliterated Uncensored596MChat Q4_K_M·160.0 t/s	Q4_K_M	1.6 GB40%	160.0 t/s	41K	S97, Runs great
AI21 Jamba Reasoning 3B3.2BChatReasoningFunctions Q4_K_M·55.5 t/s	Q4_K_M	2.3 GB56%	55.5 t/s	262K	A82, Runs well
Xiaomi OCR 0873MVisionFunctions Q4_K_M·143.4 t/s	Q4_K_M	0.9 GB23%	143.4 t/s	262K	S96, Runs great
GPT OSS BF167MChatFunctions Q4_K_M·416.0 t/s	Q4_K_M	0.3 GB8%	416.0 t/s	131K	S100, Runs great
LightOnOCR 2 1B1.0BVision Q4_K_M·122.4 t/s	Q4_K_M	1.8 GB46%	122.4 t/s	16K	S95, Runs great
Qwen3.5 35B A3B DFlash474MChat BF16·98.3 t/s	BF16	1.4 GB35%	98.3 t/s	262K	S91, Runs great

RTX 3050 Laptop GPU specs, power and PSU

Specs

Architecture: Ampere
VRAM: 4 GB GDDR6
Memory bandwidth: 192.0 GB/s
FP16 (dense): 14.25 TFLOPS
CUDA cores: 2,048
Tensor cores: 64
Compute capability: 8.6
TDP: 80 W
Released: 2021-05-11

RTX 3050 Laptop GPU FAQ

What is the largest model the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU can run?

Qwen3.5 4B (4.7B) is the largest at 4-bit or better: at Q4_K_M it uses 3.4 GB of 4 GB, and runs at about 38.3 tok/s.

Can the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU run 7–9B models?

No. Qwen3.5 9B needs 6.6 GB at Q4, more than the 4 GB on this card.

How many tokens per second does the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU give?

About 38.3 tok/s on Qwen3.5 4B at Q4_K_M, with the first token after 6.0 s on a 4K-token prompt.

What power supply does the RTX 3050 Laptop GPU need?

Plan a 200 W PSU (2× the 80 W TDP).

Is renting cheaper than buying an RTX 3050 Laptop GPU?

An RTX 3080 (10 GB) rents from $0.11/hr. With regular daily use, owning pays off.

Best coding LLMs 8 GB VRAM GPUs with 4 GB or more RTX 3070 Ti RTX 2080 SUPER RTX 2070