NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
ChatFunctionsNVIDIA's Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B is a mixture-of-experts model with roughly 120 billion total parameters, of which about 12 billion are active for any given token, the figure that primarily drives inference speed. Because the full expert set still needs to be resident in memory, running it locally needs multi-GPU or server-class hardware rather than a single consumer card, even though the active-parameter count keeps generation relatively fast for a model this large. It is tuned for general chat and instruction-following. The model is distributed in bfloat16 precision and supports a 256K token context window. It is released under NVIDIA's own license terms rather than a standard open-source license, and was published on March 10, 2026, as part of the Nemotron 3 series.
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 runs on a 96 GB+ Mac or a workstation GPU
Best local pick → Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 96GB) · Q4_K_M · 74.7 GB · ~32 tok/s
Macs from 48 GB (IQ2_M · ~36 tok/s)
Score 95.8#71 of 106 open#33 of 62 that fit ≤96 GBOther
Not set up for it?
Reference GPU · RTX 4090 24 GB
Estimates, ±20% · how we estimate
llmrun Composite Score →
95.8
- 90% range 86.0–105.6
- #71 of 106 open models
- #33 of 62 that fit ≤96 GB
Run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16
One recommended way. Every other method, OS and quant is in the step-by-step guide.Each way opens a step-by-step guide for your OS and quant.
Recommended
ollama run hf.co/unsloth/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Super-120B-A12B-GGUF:Q4_K_MQ4_K_M · needs ~74.7 GB · 16K context
Download: UD-Q4_K_M/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Super-120B-A12B-UD-Q4_K_M-00001-of-00003.gguf82.54 GB + 2 partsunsloth
Ways to runOther ways
each opens step-by-stepRun in cloud
Your own private copy · Q4_K_M · 96 GB GPU
- The easiest way to try this model
- Running in a few minutes, easy setup
- Chat right here or connect any app
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Runs on RTX PRO 6000 (96 GB) (21 GB headroom) · Q4_K_M
- Generation speed
- ~86 tok/s
- generation speed
- Cost per 1M output tokens
- $4.29
- per 1M output tokens
How Much VRAM Does NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 Need?
Select a quantization level; the listed hardware adheres to it.
| Quantization | VRAM | +32K | On RTX 4090 (reference) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 53.0 GB | 53.2 GB | 2-bit · K-quant — 2-bit quantization with K-quant improvements | Does not fit: needs 53 GB | |
| 54.6 GB | 54.7 GB | 3-bit small — 3-bit small quantization | Does not fit: needs 54.6 GB | |
| 60.7 GB | 60.9 GB | 3-bit medium — 3-bit medium quantization | Does not fit: needs 60.7 GB | |
| 62.3 GB | 62.5 GB | 4-bit · legacy — 4-bit legacy quantization | Does not fit: needs 62.3 GB | |
| 74.7 GB | 74.8 GB | 4-bit medium — 4-bit medium quantization — most popular sweet spot | Does not fit: needs 74.7 GB | |
| 88.6 GB | 88.7 GB | 5-bit medium — 5-bit medium quantization — good quality/size tradeoff | Does not fit: needs 88.6 GB | |
| 102.5 GB | 102.6 GB | 6-bit, very good — 6-bit quantization, very good quality | Does not fit: needs 102.5 GB | |
| 124.1 GB | 124.3 GB | 8-bit, near-lossless — 8-bit quantization, near-lossless | Does not fit: needs 124.1 GB |
Selected Q4_K_M
4-bit medium quantization74.7GBat 16K context
- Weights
- 74.2 GB
- KV cache
- 0.2 GB
- Overhead
- 0.3 GB
Doesn't fit RTX 4090 (reference) · needs 50.7 GB more
Or .
Which Hardware Can Run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
Q4_K_M · 74.7 GBNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 (Q4_K_M) requires 74.7 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 98+ GB is recommended. Using the full 262K context window can add up to 2.8 GB, bringing total usage to 77.4 GB. No consumer GPU has enough memory. 30 devices with unified memory can run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16, including Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 256GB), Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 512GB), Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 96GB).
48 GB
48 GB tier →Q4_K_M · best fit IQ2_M (42.2 GB)
2 Mac classes · 1 device family
M5 Max48 GB~36Simulate output on Mac Studio M5 Max (48 GB)M5 Pro48 GB~26Simulate output on Mac Mini M5 Pro (48 GB)Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme (X2E-96-100)~26Simulate output on Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme Copilot+ PC96 GB
fits · 21.4 GB free · up to 256K ctx
2 Mac classes
M3 Ultra*96 GB~32Simulate output on Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 96GB)M3 Max*96 GB~18Simulate output on MacBook Pro 14" M3 Max (96 GB)
By VRAM tier · typical GPUs and Macs at Q4_K_M
How good is NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
The llmrun Score merges 4 public benchmark boards into a single figure, where 100 represents the average for open models.
Score vs VRAM in the ≤96 GB tier
- NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16
- Other models
- Best Score for its VRAM
#33 of 62 that fit ≤96 GB
Each dot is a model at the best quant that fits ≤96 GB. The line steps up to the best Score available at each amount of VRAM; a dot below it is beaten by a model that needs no more memory.
Full ≤96 GB ranking →Benchmarks
Here are all 5 boards that have results for this model, sorted by their weight in the llmrun Score; badges show who ran the test.
- LMArena Text
LMArena · Oct 2026Arena
Arena1359.9
#70/188 open
- SciCode
Epoch AI · Mar 2026Lab-reported
Lab-reported36.0%
#50/72 open
- WeirdML
Epoch AI · Mar 2026Independent
Independent38.0%
#29/47 open
- ALE-Bench
Epoch AI · Mar 2026Lab-reported
Lab-reported213.9
#47/48 open
- CritPt
Epoch AI · Mar 2026Lab-reported
Lab-reported3.1%
#28/84 open
In the ≤96 GB class
62 models fit ≤96 GBSame Score, only models that fit ≤96 GB at their best quant: the ranking a ≤96 GB owner actually chooses from.
- #1
MiMo V2.6 Flash RLXiaomi
131.9
~153 tok/s · 93.8 GB
- #2
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731DeepSeek
127.6
~103 tok/s · 95.5 GB
- #3
Qwen3.8 27BAlibaba
122.0
~67 tok/s · 17.9 GB
- #4
Inkling SmallThinking Machines
119.6
~356 tok/s · 92.9 GB
- #5
DeepSeek V4 FlashDeepSeek
115.3
~162 tok/s · 91.4 GB
- #6
MiniMax M2.5MiniMax
111.8
~139 tok/s · 93.9 GB
Alternatives to NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16
Nemotron family · 45 models →Official models with an llmrun Score, each answering one question; numbers are at the best quant that fits a 24 GB GPU.
Best alternative at this size
Mistral Medium 3.5 128B
Mistral AI
- 6.3 higher Score
- 8.2 GB more VRAM
Score 102.1 · 82.8 GB
Other vendor
Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507
Alibaba
- 12.6 higher Score
- 68.3 GB more VRAM
Score 108.4 · 142.9 GB
Similar models
10| Model | Score | VRAM | tok/s | Why it is similar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiniMax M2.5MiniMax | 111.8 | 139.6 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| Qwen3.5 122B A10BAlibaba | 109.4 | 75.5 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| MiniMax M2.7MiniMax | 107.4 | 139.6 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| MiniMax M2.1MiniMax | 106.2 | 139.6 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| MiniMax M2MiniMax | 104.0 | 139.6 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| Qwen3 235B A22BAlibaba | 100.0 | 142.9 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 98.5 | 142.9 GB | —needs > 24 GB | similar score |
| Qwen3.5 4BAlibaba | 98.5 | 3.4 GB | ~201 | similar score |
| Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507Alibaba | 96.7 | 19.4 GB | ~173 | similar score |
| GPT OSS 20BOpenAI | 96.4 | 13.1 GB | ~190 | similar score |
Fine-tunes & variants(2)
Specifications
- Publisher
- NVIDIA
- Family
- Nemotron
- Parameters
- 123.6B
- Active parameters
- 13B per token
- Architecture
- NemotronHForCausalLM
- Context Length
- 262,144 tokens
- Vocabulary Size
- 131,072
- Release Date
- 2026-03-10
- License
- Other
Frequently Asked Questions
How much VRAM does NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 need?
NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 requires 74.7 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M, or 247.7 GB at BF16. Full 262K context adds up to 2.8 GB (77.4 GB total).
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 123.6B × 4.8 bits ÷ 8 = 74.2 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 0.5 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 ≈ 3.2 GB (at full 262K context)
VRAM usage by quantization
Can NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
No — NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 requires at least 34.5 GB at IQ2_XXS, which exceeds the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090's 32 GB of VRAM.
What's the best quantization for NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
For NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16, Q4_K_M (74.7 GB) offers the best balance of quality and VRAM usage. Q4_K_L (76.2 GB) provides better quality if you have the VRAM. The smallest option is IQ2_XXS at 34.5 GB.
VRAM requirement by quantization
★ Recommended — best balance of quality and VRAM usage.
Can I run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 on a Mac?
Yes — Mac Studio M5 Max (48 GB) and 55 other Macs can run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16, the smallest at IQ2_M. Apple Silicon uses unified memory, so the model shares RAM with the system. At Q4_K_M you need at least 74.7 GB of usable unified memory (RAM minus macOS overhead), from Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 96GB).
Can I run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 locally?
Yes — NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 can run locally on consumer hardware. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
How fast is NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
At Q4_K_M, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 can reach ~52 tok/s on AMD Instinct MI350X. Speed depends mainly on GPU memory bandwidth. Real-world results typically within ±20%.
tok/s = 1000 ÷ (active GB ÷ (bandwidth GB/s × efficiency) × 1000 + layers × routing ms)
Mixture-of-Experts: just the active experts get read for each token, along with a fixed routing cost per layer.
Example: NVIDIA B200 → 7.9 GB active ÷ (8000 × 0.65) = 1.51 ms, plus 88 layers × 0.055 ms = 4.84 ms, so 1000 ÷ 6.35 ms = ~157 tok/s
Estimated speed at Q4_K_M (74.7 GB)
Real-world results typically within ±20%. Speed depends on batch size, quantization kernel, and software stack.
What's the download size of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
At Q4_K_M, the download is about 74.17 GB. The full-precision BF16 version is 247.22 GB. The smallest option (IQ2_XXS) is 33.99 GB.
Which GPUs can run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
No single consumer GPU has enough VRAM to run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 at Q4_K_M (74.7 GB). Multi-GPU or professional hardware is required.
Which devices can run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16?
30 devices with unified memory can run NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B BF16 at Q4_K_M (74.7 GB), including ASUS Ascent GX10, Beelink GTR9 Pro (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB), Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB), GMKtec EVO-X2 (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.