local intelligence

will it local

Best local LLMs for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

4GB · Pascal

No localmaxxing.com approved runs for this exact card; bench evidence is r/LocalLLaMA community reports only 4GB VRAM means 7B Q4_K_M does not fit on-GPU — requires partial CPU offload, which tanks speed to single digits No tensor cores; llama.cpp CUDA path uses slow fp32/fp16 CUDA-core kernels Pascal (CC 6.1) support is being deprecated in newer CUDA releases — future llama.cpp builds may drop it 75W TDP, most models have no 6-pin PCIe power connector — good for OEM/SFF retrofits Lowest memory bandwidth in this class (112 GB/s) — decode is bandwidth-bound

explore the full catalogupgrade paths with live prices · what fits on each machine

Speed

computed band 6.1-11.0 tok/s for 8B Q4_K_M (roofline, 112.1 GB/s VRAM); community: single-digit (interactive at best) tok/s Qwen2.5-7B (partial offload, 4GB VRAM) Q4-class GGUF with CPU offload (https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1po97ad/finally_managed_to_run_qwen257b_on_a_4gb_gtx_1050)

Effective decode window: 0.28–0.50 of 112.1 GB/s nominal → ~31–56 GB/s effective (llama.cpp decode, Q4_K_M basis; arch window, community-calibrated)

What fits (computed)

3b-q4 full 2.8 GB needed of 4 GB usable — headroom for context

4b-q4 tight 3.7 of 4 GB usable — keep context modest

8b-q4 no 6.1 GB vs 4 GB usable — does not fit

Cited community benches (1 rows)

→ single-digit (interactive at best) tok/s · Qwen2.5-7B (partial offload, 4GB VRAM) Q4-class GGUF with CPU offload · source

Runs fully in memory (machine alternatives)

Nominal bandwidth: 112.1 GB/s — see the effective decode window above

qwen3:0.6b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 0.6B · 0.6GB · needs ~1GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:1.7b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1.7B · 1.4GB · needs ~1.8GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:4b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 4B · 2.6GB · needs ~3.2GB (4k ctx)

llama3.2:1b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1B · 1.3GB · needs ~1.4GB (4k ctx)

llama3.2:3b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 3B · 2.0GB · needs ~2.4GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:1b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 1B · 1.0GB · needs ~1.1GB (4k ctx)

phi4:mini on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) mini 3.8B · 2.5GB · needs ~3GB (4k ctx)

moondream:2b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 2B · 1.7GB · needs ~3.7GB (4k ctx)

whisper:tiny on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) tiny · 0.1GB · needs ~2.1GB (4k ctx)

whisper on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) base · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

whisper:small on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) small · 0.9GB · needs ~2.9GB (4k ctx)

kokoro:82m on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 82M · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:4b on Raspberry Pi 5 + AI Kit (Hailo-8L) ($110) 4B · 3.3GB · needs ~3.8GB (4k ctx)

Borderline — runs, but offloads

→ deepseek-r1:7b distill 7B — 4.9 GB vs 4 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

→ mistral:7b 7B — 4.6 GB vs 4 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

Gotchas

⚠ No localmaxxing.com approved runs for this exact card; bench evidence is r/LocalLLaMA community reports only

⚠ 4GB VRAM means 7B Q4_K_M does not fit on-GPU — requires partial CPU offload, which tanks speed to single digits

⚠ No tensor cores; llama.cpp CUDA path uses slow fp32/fp16 CUDA-core kernels

⚠ Pascal (CC 6.1) support is being deprecated in newer CUDA releases — future llama.cpp builds may drop it

⚠ 75W TDP, most models have no 6-pin PCIe power connector — good for OEM/SFF retrofits

⚠ Lowest memory bandwidth in this class (112 GB/s) — decode is bandwidth-bound

Where to go next

gtx-1650

2x the bandwidth in the same 4GB class — cheapest first step

→ its best-models page

RTX 3060 12GB (used)

$350 — first tier where 8B Q4 fits with real headroom

eBay (used) ↗ · Amazon ↗

2026-09-18 · ← full hardware catalog · fit = working set vs VRAM · speeds are community-reported, cited in our knowledge base