Baichuan 13B Base — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
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Baichuan 13B Base is a 13B-parameter open language model from baichuan-inc. At BF16 it needs about 28.60 GB of VRAM — see which GPUs and Macs can run it below.
1.1K downloads
187 likesSpecifications
- Publisher
- baichuan-inc
- Parameters
- 13B
- Architecture
- BaichuanForCausalLM
- Vocabulary Size
- 64,000
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HuggingFace
How Much VRAM Does Baichuan 13B Base Need?
Select a quantization to see compatible GPUs below.
| Quantization | Bits | VRAM | + Context | File Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF16 | 16.00 | 28.6 GB | — | 26.00 GB | Brain floating point 16 — preferred for training |
Which GPUs Can Run Baichuan 13B Base?
BF16 · 28.6 GBBaichuan 13B Base (BF16) requires 28.6 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 38+ GB is recommended. 1 GPU can run it, including NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090.
All compatible consumer-level GPUs are running near their VRAM limit. You may also want to consider professional GPUs (e.g., NVIDIA A100, H100) which offer significantly more VRAM. For more headroom and better throughput, consider a multi-GPU configuration with tensor parallelism (supported by tools like vLLM, llama.cpp, or text-generation-inference).
Decent
— Enough VRAM, may be tightWhich Devices Can Run Baichuan 13B Base?
BF16 · 28.6 GB15 devices with unified memory can run Baichuan 13B Base, including NVIDIA DGX H100, NVIDIA DGX A100 640GB, Mac Studio M4 Max (36 GB).
Runs great
— Plenty of headroomDecent
— Enough memory, may be tightBenchmarks
View all 3 →Related Models
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much VRAM does Baichuan 13B Base need?
Baichuan 13B Base requires 28.6 GB of VRAM at BF16.
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 13B × 16 bits ÷ 8 = 26 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 2.6 GB (at 2K context + ~0.3 GB framework)
VRAM usage by quantization
BF1628.6 GB- Can I run Baichuan 13B Base on a Mac?
Baichuan 13B Base requires at least 28.6 GB at BF16, which exceeds the unified memory of most consumer Macs. You would need a Mac Studio or Mac Pro with a high-memory configuration.
- Can I run Baichuan 13B Base locally?
Yes — Baichuan 13B Base can run locally on consumer hardware. At BF16 quantization it needs 28.6 GB of VRAM. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
- How fast is Baichuan 13B Base?
At BF16, Baichuan 13B Base can reach ~102 tok/s on AMD Instinct MI300X. Speed depends mainly on GPU memory bandwidth. Real-world results typically within ±20%.
tok/s = (bandwidth GB/s ÷ model GB) × efficiency
Example: AMD Instinct MI300X → 5300 ÷ 28.6 × 0.55 = ~102 tok/s
Estimated speed at BF16 (28.6 GB)
~102 tok/s~76 tok/s~63 tok/sReal-world results typically within ±20%. Speed depends on batch size, quantization kernel, and software stack.
- What's the download size of Baichuan 13B Base?
At BF16, the download is about 26.00 GB.
- Which GPUs can run Baichuan 13B Base?
1 consumer GPU can run Baichuan 13B Base at BF16 (28.6 GB). Top options include NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090.
- Which devices can run Baichuan 13B Base?
15 devices with unified memory can run Baichuan 13B Base at BF16 (28.6 GB), including Mac Mini M4 (32 GB), Mac Mini M4 Pro (48 GB), Mac Pro M2 Ultra (192 GB), Mac Studio M2 Ultra (192 GB). Apple Silicon Macs use unified memory shared between CPU and GPU, making them well-suited for local LLM inference.