▲ local intelligence

will it local

Best local LLMs for the NVIDIA GTX 950

2GB · Maxwell

Maxwell: pre-tensor, weak quant kernel path; micro-tasks only. Class E dead-end: the advisor says so plainly and offers the cheapest real step up instead.

Dead end for LLMs

This card is below the useful floor for local LLM inference — we say so plainly and point at the cheapest real step up instead.

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

Speed

no computed band (non-banded class)

What fits (computed)

—

Cited community benches

no single-card bench published — band is computed (see notes)

Runs fully in memory (machine alternatives)

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

→ qwen3:0.6b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 0.6B · 0.6GB · needs ~1GB (4k ctx)

→ qwen3:1.7b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 1.7B · 1.4GB · needs ~1.8GB (4k ctx)

→ llama3.2:1b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 1B · 1.3GB · needs ~1.4GB (4k ctx)

→ gemma3:1b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 1B · 1.0GB · needs ~1.1GB (4k ctx)

Borderline — runs, but offloads

→ llama3.2:3b 3B — 2.4 GB vs 2 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

→ whisper:tiny tiny — 2.1 of 2 GB usable — barely over; real with q8 KV cache (halves KV) or shorter context

→ whisper base — 2.3 GB vs 2 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

→ kokoro:82m 82M — 2.3 GB vs 2 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

Gotchas

⚠ 2GB variant common — below floor; 4GB rare

Where to go next

gtx-1050-ti

cheapest real 4GB entry — runs 3B/4B Q4 fully

→ its best-models page

gtx-1650

first card where 8B Q4 fully fits (4GB)

→ its best-models page

2026-10-01 · ← full hardware catalog · fit = working set vs VRAM · speeds are community-reported, cited in our knowledge base