Orca Mini 3B — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
ChatMath
Orca Mini 3B is a 3.4B-parameter open language model from pankajmathur in the Orca family. It supports a context window of up to 2,048 tokens. At BF16 it needs about 7.54 GB of VRAM — see which GPUs and Macs can run it below.
1.1K downloads
166 likesSpecifications
- Publisher
- pankajmathur
- Family
- Orca
- Parameters
- 3.4B
- Architecture
- LlamaForCausalLM
- Context Length
- 2,048 tokens
- Vocabulary Size
- 32,000
- Release Date
- 2025-06-14
- License
- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Get Started
HuggingFace
How Much VRAM Does Orca Mini 3B Need?
Select a quantization to see compatible GPUs below.
| Quantization | Bits | VRAM | + Context | File Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF16 | 16.00 | 7.5 GB | — | 6.85 GB | Brain floating point 16 — preferred for training |
Which GPUs Can Run Orca Mini 3B?
BF16 · 7.5 GBOrca Mini 3B (BF16) requires 7.5 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 10+ GB is recommended. 35 GPUs can run it, including NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080.
Runs great
— Plenty of headroom
Decent
— Enough VRAM, may be tightWhich Devices Can Run Orca Mini 3B?
BF16 · 7.5 GB33 devices with unified memory can run Orca Mini 3B, including NVIDIA DGX H100, NVIDIA DGX A100 640GB, MacBook Air 13" M3 (8 GB).
Runs great
— Plenty of headroomDecent
— Enough memory, may be tightRelated Models
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much VRAM does Orca Mini 3B need?
Orca Mini 3B requires 7.5 GB of VRAM at BF16.
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 3.4B × 16 bits ÷ 8 = 6.9 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 0.6 GB (at 2K context + ~0.3 GB framework)
VRAM usage by quantization
BF167.5 GB- Can I run Orca Mini 3B on a Mac?
Orca Mini 3B requires at least 7.5 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 Orca Mini 3B locally?
Yes — Orca Mini 3B can run locally on consumer hardware. At BF16 quantization it needs 7.5 GB of VRAM. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
- How fast is Orca Mini 3B?
At BF16, Orca Mini 3B can reach ~387 tok/s on AMD Instinct MI300X. On NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090: ~87 tok/s. 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 ÷ 7.5 × 0.55 = ~387 tok/s
Estimated speed at BF16 (7.5 GB)
~387 tok/s~87 tok/s~289 tok/s~239 tok/sReal-world results typically within ±20%. Speed depends on batch size, quantization kernel, and software stack.
- What's the download size of Orca Mini 3B?
At BF16, the download is about 6.85 GB.
- Which GPUs can run Orca Mini 3B?
35 consumer GPUs can run Orca Mini 3B at BF16 (7.5 GB). Top options include AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, AMD Radeon RX 6800, AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, AMD Radeon RX 7600. 26 GPUs have plenty of headroom for comfortable inference.
- Which devices can run Orca Mini 3B?
33 devices with unified memory can run Orca Mini 3B at BF16 (7.5 GB), including Mac Mini M4 (16 GB), Mac Mini M4 (32 GB), Mac Mini M4 Pro (24 GB), Mac Mini M4 Pro (48 GB). Apple Silicon Macs use unified memory shared between CPU and GPU, making them well-suited for local LLM inference.