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Device profile · Windows

Best local LLMs for 8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only)

8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only) has ~5 GB usable for model weights and runs 24 of 67 popular models. Best tool: LM Studio.

Usable memory
~5 GB
Models run
24
Too large
43
Top pick
4B
Top pick Q4_K_M
Gemma 3 4B Yes

Runs at Q4_K_M using ~3.8 GB of ~5 GB usable.

Runs on 8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only)

Compatible models 24 total

Too large for this device

DeepSeek R1DeepSeek V3Qwen3 235B A22Bgpt-oss 120BLlama 4 ScoutSarvam-105BQwen2.5 72BLlama 3.3 70BMixtral 8x7BCommand R 35BYi 1.5 34BQwen2.5 32BQwen3 32BDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32BQwen2.5 Coder 32BGranite 4.0 H SmallQwen3 30B-A3BSarvam-30BGemma 2 27BGemma 3 27BMistral Small 3 24BSarvam-M 24Bgpt-oss 20BDeepSeek-V2-LitePhi-4 14BQwen2.5 14BQwen3 14BDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 14BQwen2.5 Coder 14BMistral Nemo 12BGemma 3 12BLlama 3.2 Vision 11BFalcon3 10BGemma 2 9BGLM-4 9BQwen2.5-VL 7BLlama 3.1 8BQwen3 8BDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama 8BMistral 7BQwen2.5 7BDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 7BQwen2.5 Coder 7B

Best way to run models on Windows

Runtime guide Windows

Beginner: LM Studio, Best GUI on Windows, auto-detects CUDA/Vulkan backends.

Power user: Ollama (CUDA), Scriptable server; CUDA path is fastest on NVIDIA.

AMD GPUs run via Vulkan/ROCm at roughly half CUDA throughput. NVIDIA is the smooth path on Windows.

Full Windows tool guide →

FAQ

What is the best local LLM for 8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only)?

Gemma 3 4B is the strongest model that runs comfortably, using ~3.8 GB at Q4_K_M of the ~5 GB usable on 8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only).

How much of 8GB RAM Laptop (CPU/iGPU only)'s memory can I use for a model?

About 5 GB. On a CPU-only machine, leave headroom for the OS and apps.

Which tool should I use on Windows?

LM Studio (Best GUI on Windows, auto-detects CUDA/Vulkan backends.) or Ollama (CUDA) for speed. AMD GPUs run via Vulkan/ROCm at roughly half CUDA throughput. NVIDIA is the smooth path on Windows.

Sources

Memory figures are estimates. See methodology.