local intelligence

will it local

Best local LLMs for the NVIDIA Titan V 12GB

12GB · Volta

The first tensor-core graphics card (GV100, Volta), $2,999 in 2017. A collector's piece now — CUDA 7.0, weak 1st-gen tensor throughput — but 652.8 GB/s of HBM2 still beats most 12GB cards ever made.

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

Speed

computed band 58.0-97.0 tok/s for 8B Q4_K_M

Effective decode window: 0.46–0.76 of 652.8 GB/s nominal → ~300–496 GB/s effective (llama.cpp decode, Q4_K_M basis; arch window, community-calibrated)

What fits (computed)

13b-q4 offload-partial 14.6 GB vs 12 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

3b-q4 full 2.8 GB needed of 12 GB usable — headroom for context

4b-q4 full 3.7 GB needed of 12 GB usable — headroom for context

8b-q4 full 6.1 GB needed of 12 GB usable — headroom for context

Cited community benches

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

Runs fully in memory (machine alternatives)

Nominal bandwidth: 652.8 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)

qwen3:4b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 4B · 2.6GB · needs ~3.2GB (4k ctx)

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

llama3.2:3b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 3B · 2.0GB · needs ~2.4GB (4k ctx)

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

phi4:mini on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) mini 3.8B · 2.5GB · needs ~3GB (4k ctx)

moondream:2b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 2B · 1.7GB · needs ~3.7GB (4k ctx)

whisper:tiny on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) tiny · 0.1GB · needs ~2.1GB (4k ctx)

whisper on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) base · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

whisper:small on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) small · 0.9GB · needs ~2.9GB (4k ctx)

whisper:medium on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) medium · 3.1GB · needs ~5.1GB (4k ctx)

kokoro:82m on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 82M · 0.3GB · needs ~2.3GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:4b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 4B · 3.3GB · needs ~3.8GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:7b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) distill 7B · 4.7GB · needs ~4.9GB (4k ctx)

mistral:7b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 7B · 4.1GB · needs ~4.6GB (4k ctx)

llava:7b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 7B · 4.7GB · needs ~6.7GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:8b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 8B · 5.2GB · needs ~5.8GB (4k ctx)

qwen2.5vl:7b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 7B · 5.6GB · needs ~5.8GB (4k ctx)

llama3.1:8b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 8B · 4.9GB · needs ~5.4GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:8b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) distill 8B · 4.9GB · needs ~5.4GB (4k ctx)

whisper:large-v3 on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) large-v3 · 6.2GB · needs ~8.2GB (4k ctx)

mistral-nemo:12b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 12B · 7.1GB · needs ~7.7GB (4k ctx)

sdxl on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) SDXL base · 6.9GB · needs ~8.9GB (4k ctx)

llava:13b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 13B · 8.0GB · needs ~11.1GB (4k ctx)

gemma3:12b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 12B · 8.1GB · needs ~9.6GB (4k ctx)

qwen3:14b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 14B · 9.3GB · needs ~9.9GB (4k ctx)

deepseek-r1:14b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) distill 14B · 9.0GB · needs ~9.8GB (4k ctx)

phi4:14b on Tesla M60 (16GB, used) ($35) 14B · 9.1GB · needs ~9.9GB (4k ctx)

Borderline — runs, but offloads

→ gpt-oss:20b 20B MoE — 14.2 GB vs 12 GB usable — partial CPU offload, expect large speed loss

Gotchas

⚠ 1st-gen tensor cores + CUDA 7.0: modern kernels often fall back to non-tensor paths — the HBM2 bandwidth is the durable asset

⚠ NVLink is disabled on Titan V — multi-card runs go over PCIe

⚠ 12GB HBM2: bandwidth-rich, capacity-poor by today's standards; a used 3090 has 2x the VRAM for less

Where to go next

Tesla V100 32GB (used)

$640 — same Volta silicon, 32GB HBM2, live used lane

eBay (used) ↗ · Amazon ↗

2026-09-24 · ← full hardware catalog · fit = working set vs VRAM · speeds are community-reported, cited in our knowledge base