Local LLM Setup Hardware Guide 2026: What You Need for 7B to 70B Models

Hardware needed for local LLMs: 16GB RAM min, 8GB VRAM for GPU inference. Quantization reduces model size by 75%.

💡 What You Will Learn

Hardware needed for local LLMs: 16GB RAM min, 8GB VRAM for GPU inference. Quantization reduces model size by 75%.

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.

📎 **Next step:** - [Local LLM Setup Guide 2026: Run AI Models](/post/local-llm-setup-guide-2026-run-ai-models-534201)