mistral-experimental · vision language

pixtral-12b

mistral-experimental/pixtral-12b

pixtral-12b at Q4_K_M is exactly 7,477,204,608 bytes (6.96 GiB / 7.48 GB) — an effective 4.716 bits per weight, not the nominal 4. Its KV cache at 32K is 5.00 GiB.

From the file· summed from 1 file(s)From the file· KV per layer
Parameters
12.7B
Architecture
llama
40 layers
Context
1,024,000
native (config.json)
License
apache-2.0

Shipped quantizations

● exact bytes, summed from published files
QuantSize●Exact bytes●Effective bpw●Tensors●Publisher
IQ2_S3.85 GiB4,138,473,3442.611—bartowski
IQ2_M4.13 GiB4,435,023,7442.797—bartowski
Q2_K4.46 GiB4,791,047,8083.022—ggml-org
Q2_K4.46 GiB4,791,048,0643.022—bartowski
IQ3_XXS4.61 GiB4,945,385,3443.119—bartowski
IQ3_XS4.94 GiB5,306,488,7043.347—bartowski
Q2_K_L5.07 GiB5,446,408,0643.436—bartowski
Q3_K_S5.15 GiB5,534,226,3043.491—bartowski
IQ3_M5.33 GiB5,722,232,7043.610—bartowski
Q3_K_M5.67 GiB6,083,090,3043.837—bartowski
Q3_K_L6.11 GiB6,561,502,8484.139—lmstudio-community
Q3_K_L6.11 GiB6,561,503,1044.139—bartowski
IQ4_XS6.28 GiB6,742,710,1444.253—bartowski
Q4_06.61 GiB7,094,638,4644.475—bartowski
IQ4_NL6.61 GiB7,097,915,2644.477—bartowski
Q4_K_S6.63 GiB7,120,197,5044.491—bartowski
Q4_K_M6.96 GiB7,477,204,6084.716—ggml-org
Q4_K_M6.96 GiB7,477,204,6084.716—lmstudio-community
Q4_K_M6.96 GiB7,477,204,8644.716—bartowski
Q4_17.26 GiB7,795,218,3044.917—bartowski
Q4_K_L7.43 GiB7,975,278,4645.031—bartowski
Q5_K_S7.93 GiB8,518,735,7445.373—bartowski
Q5_K_M8.13 GiB8,727,631,7445.505—bartowski
Q5_K_L8.51 GiB9,141,819,2645.766—bartowski
Q6_K9.37 GiB10,056,210,0486.343—lmstudio-community
Q6_K9.37 GiB10,056,210,3046.343—bartowski
Q6_K_L9.67 GiB10,381,268,8646.548—bartowski
Q8_012.13 GiB13,022,369,4088.214—ggml-org
Q8_012.13 GiB13,022,369,4088.214—lmstudio-community
Q8_012.13 GiB13,022,369,6648.214—bartowski
BF1622.82 GiB24,504,276,60815.457—bartowski
F1622.82 GiB24,504,276,60815.457—ggml-org

KV cache by context

computed per layer
ContextKV cache (f16)●Flat formulaOverstated byFull / windowed / recurrent
4,0960.63 GiB0.63 GiB—40 / 0 / 0
8,1921.25 GiB1.25 GiB—40 / 0 / 0
16,3842.50 GiB2.50 GiB—40 / 0 / 0
32,7685.00 GiB5.00 GiB—40 / 0 / 0
65,53610.00 GiB10.00 GiB—40 / 0 / 0
131,07220.00 GiB20.00 GiB—40 / 0 / 0

Compare with

same modality, comparable size
vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3Bvs Qwen3.5-9Bvs gemma-4-26B-A4B-itvs gemma-4-12B-itvs Qwen3.5-4Bvs Qwythos-9B-Claude-Mythos-5-1MAll 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 6.64 GiB. The real file is 6.96 GiB, because a quantization is a mixture and some tensors are always kept at higher precision.

Architecture

from config.json
Layers
40
Attention heads
—
KV heads
8
Head dim
128
Hidden size
5120
Vocab
131,072
Sliding window
none
SWA period
—
MLA
no
Experts
—
Experts per token
—
use_sliding_window
—

Questions people ask

How much VRAM does pixtral-12b need?
Q4_K_M is exactly 7,477,204,608 bytes (6.96 GiB) in weights. Add the KV cache, which depends on your context length, plus roughly half a gigabyte of runtime overhead.
How large is pixtral-12b's KV cache?
5.00 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 pixtral-12b 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.