mistralai · text

Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-BF16

mistralai/Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-BF16

Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-BF16 at Q4_K_M is exactly 2,146,495,744 bytes (2.00 GiB / 2.15 GB) — an effective 4.039 bits per weight, not the nominal 4. Its KV cache at 32K is 3.25 GiB.

From the file· summed from 1 file(s)From the file· KV per layer
Parameters
4.3B
Architecture
mistral3
26 layers
Context
262,144
native (config.json)
License
apache-2.0

Shipped quantizations

● exact bytes, summed from published files
QuantSize●Exact bytes●Effective bpw●Tensors●Publisher
IQ2_M1.23 GiB1,319,565,2802.483—bartowski
IQ3_XXS1.35 GiB1,448,294,3682.725—bartowski
Q2_K1.36 GiB1,458,957,5682.745—squ11z1
Q2_K1.36 GiB1,458,960,3522.745—bartowski
Q2_K_L1.45 GiB1,556,477,9202.929—bartowski
IQ3_XS1.47 GiB1,580,414,9442.974—bartowski
Q3_K_S1.53 GiB1,639,148,8003.084—squ11z1
Q3_K_S1.53 GiB1,639,151,5843.084—bartowski
IQ3_M1.59 GiB1,704,744,9283.208—bartowski
Q3_K_M1.67 GiB1,795,550,4643.378—squ11z1
Q3_K_M1.67 GiB1,795,553,2483.378236bartowski
Q3_K_L1.80 GiB1,934,355,7123.640—squ11z1
Q3_K_L1.80 GiB1,934,358,4963.640—bartowski
IQ4_XS1.82 GiB1,959,278,5603.687236bartowski
Q4_01.91 GiB2,046,375,9043.850236bartowski
IQ4_NL1.91 GiB2,051,291,1043.860—bartowski
Q4_K_S1.91 GiB2,053,254,4003.863—squ11z1
Q4_K_S1.91 GiB2,053,257,1843.863—bartowski
Q4_K_M2.00 GiB2,146,495,7444.039—squ11z1
Q4_K_M2.00 GiB2,146,498,2404.039236lmstudio-community
Q4_K_M2.00 GiB2,146,498,5284.039236bartowski
Q4_12.08 GiB2,230,204,3844.196—bartowski
Q4_K_L2.09 GiB2,244,016,0964.222—bartowski
Q5_K_S2.25 GiB2,419,338,4964.552—squ11z1
Q5_K_S2.25 GiB2,419,341,2804.552—bartowski
Q5_K_M2.30 GiB2,473,651,4564.654—squ11z1
Q5_K_M2.30 GiB2,473,654,2404.654236bartowski
Q5_K_L2.39 GiB2,571,171,8084.838—bartowski
Q6_K2.63 GiB2,821,254,4005.308—squ11z1
Q6_K2.63 GiB2,821,256,8965.308236lmstudio-community
Q6_K2.63 GiB2,821,257,1845.308236bartowski
Q6_K_L2.72 GiB2,918,774,7525.492—bartowski
Q8_03.40 GiB3,651,677,4406.871—squ11z1
Q8_03.40 GiB3,651,679,9366.871—lmstudio-community
Q8_03.40 GiB3,651,680,2246.871236bartowski
F166.39 GiB6,866,218,24012.919236squ11z1
BF166.39 GiB6,866,220,73612.919—bartowski

KV cache by context

computed per layer
ContextKV cache (f16)●Flat formulaOverstated byFull / windowed / recurrent
4,0960.41 GiB0.41 GiB—26 / 0 / 0
8,1920.81 GiB0.81 GiB—26 / 0 / 0
16,3841.63 GiB1.63 GiB—26 / 0 / 0
32,7683.25 GiB3.25 GiB—26 / 0 / 0
65,5366.50 GiB6.50 GiB—26 / 0 / 0
131,07213.00 GiB13.00 GiB—26 / 0 / 0

Compare with

same modality, comparable size
vs Qwen3-4Bvs Qwen3-8Bvs HyperCLOVAX-SEED-Text-Instruct-1.5Bvs Llama-3.2-1B-Instructvs Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct-abliterated-v1vs Llama-3.1-8B-InstructAll alternatives →Will it fit on my card? →

Will it run on your card?

full quant x context sweep
By VRAM:8GB12GB16GB24GB32GB48GB
Radeon RX 6500 XT 4GBGeForce RTX 3050 6GBGeForce RTX 5050 8GBGeForce RTX 3080 10GBGeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GBGeForce RTX 5070 12GBGeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GBApple M3 Pro 18GBGeForce RTX 3080 Ti 20GBGeForce RTX 5090 D V2 24GBGeForce RTX 5090 D 32GBApple M5 Max 36GBApple M5 Pro 48GBApple M5 Max 64GBApple M3 Ultra 96GBApple M5 Max 128GBApple M2 Ultra 192GBApple M3 Ultra 256GBApple M3 Ultra 512GB

Why other calculators give a different number

A parameters × bits ÷ 8 estimate puts Q4_K_M at roughly 2.23 GiB. The real file is 2.00 GiB, because a quantization is a mixture and some tensors are always kept at higher precision.

Architecture

from config.json
Layers
26
Attention heads
32
KV heads
8
Head dim
128
Hidden size
3072
Vocab
131,072
Sliding window
none
SWA period
—
MLA
no
Experts
—
Experts per token
—
use_sliding_window
—

Questions people ask

How much VRAM does Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-BF16 need?
Q4_K_M is exactly 2,146,495,744 bytes (2.00 GiB) in weights. Add the KV cache, which depends on your context length, plus roughly half a gigabyte of runtime overhead.
How large is Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-BF16's KV cache?
3.25 GiB at 32K context with an f16 cache, computed per layer. Quantizing the cache to q8_0 roughly halves it, which is often the difference between a context length fitting and not.
Which quantization of Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512-BF16 should I use?
Q4_K_M is the usual default. Pick the largest quantization that fits your card at the context you actually need — the table above gives exact sizes for every one published.