Ministral 3B Instruct — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
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Ministral 3B Instruct is a 3.3B-parameter open language model from ministral in the Mistral family. It supports a context window of up to 131,072 tokens. At Q4_K_M it needs about 2.41 GB of VRAM — see which GPUs and Macs can run it below.
Runs great on a 24 GB GPU
Runs from 8 GB (Q4_K_M · 64K)Best on 24 GB (Q4_K_M · ~272 tok/s · 128K)Macs from 8 GB (Q4_K_M · ~30 tok/s)
Apache 2.0
Reference GPU · RTX 4090 24 GB
Estimates, ±20% · how we estimate
Run Ministral 3B Instruct
One recommended way. Every other method, OS and quant is in the step-by-step guide.
Recommended
vllm serve ministral/Ministral-3b-instruct --max-model-len 16384vLLM repo with its own quantisation
Download: Weights on Hugging Face
Other ways
each opens step-by-stepRun in cloud
Fits on RTX 3060 12GB (8 GB headroom) · Q4_K_M
- Generation speed
- ~97 tok/s
- generation speed
- Cost per 1M output tokens
- $0.20
- per 1M output tokens
How Much VRAM Does Ministral 3B Instruct Need?
Select a quantization level; the listed hardware adheres to it.
| Quantization | VRAM | +32K | On RTX 4090 (reference) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.8 GB | 3.6 GB | 2-bit · K-quant — 2-bit quantization with K-quant improvements | Fits: 128K context · ~358 tok/s | |
| 2.0 GB | 3.8 GB | 3-bit medium — 3-bit medium quantization | Fits: 128K context · ~323 tok/s | |
| 2.4 GB | 4.2 GB | 4-bit medium — 4-bit medium quantization — most popular sweet spot | Fits: 128K context · ~272 tok/s | |
| 2.8 GB | 4.5 GB | 5-bit medium — 5-bit medium quantization — good quality/size tradeoff | Fits: 128K context · ~236 tok/s | |
| 3.1 GB | 4.9 GB | 6-bit, very good — 6-bit quantization, very good quality | Fits: 128K context · ~208 tok/s | |
| 3.7 GB | 5.5 GB | 8-bit, near-lossless — 8-bit quantization, near-lossless | Fits: 128K context · ~176 tok/s | |
| 7.0 GB | 8.8 GB | 16-bit · bfloat — Brain floating point 16 — preferred for training | Fits: 128K context · ~93 tok/s |
Selected Q4_K_M
4-bit medium quantization3.2GBat 16K context
- Weights
- 2.0 GB
- KV cache
- 0.9 GB
- Overhead
- 0.3 GB
Fits RTX 4090 (reference) · 20.8 GB free · ~272 tok/s
≥50 tok/s needs ≥185 GB/s · RTX 5090 ~483, RTX 3090 Ti ~272
Which Hardware Can Run Ministral 3B Instruct?
Q4_K_M · 2.4 GBMinistral 3B Instruct (Q4_K_M) requires 2.4 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 4+ GB is recommended. Using the full 131K context window can add up to 7.4 GB, bringing total usage to 9.8 GB. 52 GPUs can run it, including NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. 163 devices with unified memory can run Ministral 3B Instruct, including Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 256GB), Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 512GB).
≤ 11 GB
≤ 11 GB tier →fits · 4.8 GB free · up to 64K ctx
16 GPUs · 1 Mac class · 2 device families
RTX 3080~205Simulate output on RTX 3080RTX 2080 Ti~166Simulate output on RTX 2080 TiRTX 3070 Ti~164Simulate output on RTX 3070 TiM3*8 GB~30Simulate output on iMac 24" M3 (8 GB)Orin Nano~28Simulate output on NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 8GB (Super)iPhone~20Simulate output on iPhone 1720 GB
fits · 16.8 GB free · up to 128K ctx
1 GPU
RX 7900 XT~199Simulate output on RX 7900 XT32–40 GB
fits · 28.8 GB free · up to 128K ctx
1 GPU · 3 Mac classes · 4 device families
RTX 5090~483Simulate output on RTX 5090M5 Max36 GB~134Simulate output on Mac Studio M5 Max (36 GB)M532 GB~45Simulate output on MacBook Air 13" M5 (32 GB)Orin~55Simulate output on NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin 32GBSnapdragon X Elite (X1E-80-100)~36Simulate output on Snapdragon X Elite Copilot+ PC
By VRAM tier · typical GPUs and Macs at Q4_K_M
Alternatives to Ministral 3B Instruct
Mistral family · 34 models →Similar models
6| Model | Score | VRAM | tok/s | Why it is similar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 3BLiquid AI | — | 2.6 GB | ~285 | same size |
| Granite 4.0 MicroIBM | — | 3.7 GB | ~261 | same size |
| SmolLM3 3BHugging Face | — | 3.4 GB | ~285 | same size |
| Deepseek Vl2 TinyDeepSeek | — | 9.4 GB | ~152 | same size |
| Llama 3.2 3B InstructMeta | — | 4.1 GB | ~309 | same size |
| AI21 Jamba Reasoning 3BAI21 Labs | — | 2.3 GB | ~291 | same size |
Specifications
- Publisher
- ministral
- Family
- Mistral
- Parameters
- 3.3B
- Architecture
- MistralForCausalLM
- Context Length
- 131,072 tokens
- Vocabulary Size
- 32,000
- Release Date
- 2024-03-14
- License
- Apache 2.0
Frequently Asked Questions
How much VRAM does Ministral 3B Instruct need?
Ministral 3B Instruct requires 2.4 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M, or 7.0 GB at BF16. Full 131K context adds up to 7.4 GB (9.8 GB total).
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 3.3B × 4.8 bits ÷ 8 = 2 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 0.4 GB (at 2K context + ~0.3 GB framework)
Fit ratings and hardware model lists check this model with room for a 16K-token context, which needs a little more memory.
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 7.8 GB (at full 131K context)
VRAM usage by quantization
What's the best quantization for Ministral 3B Instruct?
For Ministral 3B Instruct, Q4_K_M (2.4 GB) offers the best balance of quality and VRAM usage. Q5_K_M (2.8 GB) provides better quality if you have the VRAM. The smallest option is Q2_K at 1.8 GB.
VRAM requirement by quantization
★ Recommended — best balance of quality and VRAM usage.
Can I run Ministral 3B Instruct on a Mac?
Yes — MacBook Air 13" M3 (8 GB) and 145 other Macs can run Ministral 3B Instruct. Apple Silicon uses unified memory, so the model shares RAM with the system. At Q4_K_M you need at least 2.4 GB of usable unified memory (RAM minus macOS overhead).
Can I run Ministral 3B Instruct locally?
Yes — Ministral 3B Instruct can run locally on consumer hardware. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
How fast is Ministral 3B Instruct?
At Q4_K_M, Ministral 3B Instruct can reach ~1992 tok/s on AMD Instinct MI350X. On NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090: ~272 tok/s. Speed depends mainly on GPU memory bandwidth. Real-world results typically within ±20%.
tok/s = (bandwidth GB/s ÷ model GB) × efficiency
Example: NVIDIA B200 → 8000 ÷ 2.41 × 0.65 = ~2158 tok/s
Estimated speed at Q4_K_M (2.4 GB)
Real-world results typically within ±20%. Speed depends on batch size, quantization kernel, and software stack.
What's the download size of Ministral 3B Instruct?
At Q4_K_M, the download is about 1.99 GB. The full-precision BF16 version is 6.63 GB. The smallest option (Q2_K) is 1.41 GB.
Which GPUs can run Ministral 3B Instruct?
52 consumer GPUs can run Ministral 3B Instruct at Q4_K_M. Top options include AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, AMD Radeon RX 6800, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT. 52 GPUs have plenty of headroom for comfortable inference.
Which devices can run Ministral 3B Instruct?
163 devices with unified memory can run Ministral 3B Instruct at Q4_K_M (2.4 GB), including AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (Strix Point) Laptop, ASUS Ascent GX10, Beelink GTR9 Pro (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB), Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB). Apple Silicon Macs use unified memory shared between CPU and GPU, making them well-suited for local LLM inference.