Best local AI models for 16GB VRAM

Ranked by what actually fits at 32K context, computed from real file bytes.

A 16GB card gives you about 14.88 GiB to work with after driver overhead. 15 indexed models fit at 32K context — the largest being lingbot-world-v2-14b-causal-fast at 18.5B parameters in Q4_K_S.

From the file· fit from summed bytesFrom the file· KV per layer

Fits in 16GB at 32K context

largest quantization that fits, per model
ModelModalityBest quantParamsTotalHeadroom
Wan2.2-Animate-14Bvideo generationQ6_K17.3B14.44 GiB0.44 GiB
Wan2.1-I2V-14B-480Pvideo generationQ6_K16.4B14.09 GiB0.79 GiB
Bernini-Rvideo generationQ6_K14.3B12.02 GiB2.86 GiB
Wan2.2-Distill-Modelsvideo generationQ6_K14.3B12.02 GiB2.86 GiB
Wan2.2-TI2V-5Bvideo generationQ8_05.0B5.87 GiB9.01 GiB
Wan2.1-T2V-14Bvideo generationQ6_K14.3B12.45 GiB2.43 GiB
Wan2.1-I2V-14B-720Pvideo generationQ6_K16.4B14.09 GiB0.79 GiB
Wan2.1-VACE-14Bvideo generationQ6_K17.3B14.36 GiB0.52 GiB
Wan2.2-S2V-14Bvideo generationQ5_K_M16.3B14.81 GiB0.07 GiB
Wan2.1-FLF2V-14B-720Pvideo generationQ6_K16.4B14.09 GiB0.79 GiB
JoyAI-Echovideo generationQ8_012.2B13.29 GiB1.59 GiB
HunyuanVideo-1.5video generationQ8_08.3B9.22 GiB5.66 GiB
Wan2.2-TI2V-5B-Turbovideo generationQ8_05.0B5.87 GiB9.01 GiB
SkyReels-V2-DF-14B-540Pvideo generationQ6_K14.3B12.02 GiB2.86 GiB
lingbot-world-v2-14b-causal-fastvideo generationQ4_K_S18.5B14.48 GiB0.40 GiB
Spec sheetPredictedwhat these mean

This page models a generic 16GB accelerator, so it answers what fits rather than how fast it runs. For tokens per second you need a specific card — pick one from hardware, where bandwidth is known.