Mistral Nemo 12B
Mistral Nemo 12B loads in 9.5 GB at Q4_K_M and is comfortable from 24 GB of memory, Macs included from the Mac Mini M6 16GB. Below: the full memory math, the cheapest card that runs it well, and the fastest machine we track.
PARAMETERS
12B
FORMAT
Q4_K_M
MIN MEMORY
16 GB
BEST FOR
Chat, Translation
Memory math
Weights (Q4_K_M)
9.5 GB
+ KV cache (16k)
~3.0 GB
Total at 16k
~12.5 GB
Comfortable from
24 GB
KV = fp16 estimate (q8_0 cache roughly halves it). "Comfortable" = weights + KV within the engine's tiered budget (~70-85% of memory).
Hardware snapshot
Go deeper
Every Mistral Nemo 12B quant by real GGUF file sizeAlso tracked: Mistral Nemo 12B (Q8) (Q8_0, 12.1 GB, min 24 GB)
More Mistral models
Frequently asked questions
How much memory does Mistral Nemo 12B need?
9.5 GB for the Q4_K_M weights, plus ~3.0 GB of KV-cache at 16k context — about 12.5 GB total. Comfortable from 24 GB of VRAM or unified memory.
Does Mistral Nemo 12B run on a Mac?
Yes — from the Mac Mini M6 16GB (~19 tok/s est.). Unified memory means the RAM budget is the only limit.
What is the cheapest GPU for Mistral Nemo 12B?
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the cheapest tracked card that runs Mistral Nemo 12B comfortably — ~52 tok/s est. at ~$550 used.
Cite this page
ModelFit: Mistral Nemo 12B — specs, memory math and hardware verdicts. https://modelfit.io/models/mistral-nemo-12b/ (dataset updated 2026-09-03, CC BY 4.0).