Local LLM Setup Hardware Guide 2026: What You Need for 7B to 70B Models
🩺 Summary
Hardware needed for local LLMs: 16GB RAM min, 8GB VRAM for GPU inference. Quantization reduces model size by 75%.
📝 Details
Minimum: 16GB RAM, 8GB VRAM (RTX 4060+). 7B models run on 16GB. 13B needs 32GB. 34B needs 64GB. 70B needs 64-128GB or dual GPUs. Quantization (Q4_K_M) is the key - reduces 70B from 140GB to 40GB. Mac unified memory is excellent - 64GB Mac runs 70B Q4 models.
FAQ
Budget setup: used RTX 3060 12GB + 32GB RAM under 00. No GPU? CPU inference at 3-8 tok/s.
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