How much VRAM does Ministral 3 8B need?

Ministral 3 8B requires approximately 0.0 GB VRAM at Q4_K_M quantization with 1K context and 10% overhead. At Q8_0 it needs ~0.0 GB, and at FP16 ~0.0 GB. Use the PCPARTGUIDE VRAM Calculator for exact requirements at any context length and overhead setting.

Can I run Ministral 3 8B on a consumer GPU?

Yes, Ministral 3 8B can run on consumer GPUs. At Q4_K_M quantization with moderate context length, it fits on a 12 GB GPU. For best performance, use a 12 GB or larger GPU with at least 8 GB VRAM for reasonable context lengths.

What is Ministral 3 8B's context window?

Ministral 3 8B supports a maximum context window of 262,144 tokens. The default context is 16,384 tokens. Larger contexts require proportionally more VRAM for the KV cache — use the VRAM Calculator to estimate exact requirements at your target context length.

What quantization level should I use for Ministral 3 8B?

For Ministral 3 8B, Q4_K_M is the recommended quantization — it provides an excellent quality-to-VRAM ratio at ~0.0 GB. Q8_0 offers slightly better quality at ~2× the VRAM. Q4_K_M is the sweet spot for most users.

How does Ministral 3 8B compare to similar models?

Ministral 3 8B is a 8.0B Dense model from the Mistral family. Browse other Mistral models on the PCPARTGUIDE directory for comparable alternatives with different parameter counts and VRAM requirements. Use the Model Transparency scores to assess documentation quality and reproducibility.

MistralDenseApache 2.0

Ministral 3 8B

8.0B

Parameters

256K

Max Context

Dense

Architecture

Sep 16, 2025

Released

Text + Vision

Modality

About Ministral 3 8B

Ministral 3 8B is a cascade-distilled compact model derived from Mistral Small 3.1. It inherits much of the 24B teacher's quality at roughly one-third the size. At ~4 GB VRAM at Q4_K_M, it delivers near-13B-class performance in the 8B weight class. Apache 2.0 licensed with vision support and 262K context. An excellent choice for laptop and mid-range GPU deployment.

General PurposeCodeVisionLaptopCommercial

Technical Specifications

Total Parameters8.0B

ArchitectureDense

Attention TypeGQA (Grouped Query Attention)

Hidden Dimensiond = 4,096

Transformer Layers34

Attention Heads32

KV Headsn_kv = 8

Head Dimensiond_head = 128

Activation FunctionSwiGLU

NormalizationRMSNorm

Position EmbeddingRoPE

System Requirements

Estimated VRAM at 10% overhead for different quantization methods and context sizes.

Quantization	1K ctx	195K ctx	256K ctx
Q4_K_M0.50 B/W ~97% of FP16	4.27Consumer GPU	30.08Datacenter GPU	38.14Datacenter GPU
Q8_01.00 B/W ~100% of FP16	8.40Consumer GPU	34.21Datacenter GPU	42.27Datacenter GPU
F162.00 B/W Reference	16.67Consumer GPU	42.48Datacenter GPU	50.54Datacenter GPU

Params

675.0B

Layers

Context

256K

41.0B active

Mistral 7B v0.3

Params

7.3B

Layers

Context

32K

Find the right GPU for Ministral 3 8B

Use the interactive VRAM Calculator to see exactly how much memory you need at any quantization level, context length, and overhead setting.

Open VRAM Calculator Best GPU Guide VRAM Guide