Best Local LLMs for the NVIDIA L4
Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated October 7, 2026
Best all-round pick: Gemma 4 27B ⭐
The NVIDIA L4 has 24 GB of VRAM, of which about 24 GB is available to a model. The largest model it can hold is Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (36B, 22.6 GB at Q4_K_M).
Best models overall on the NVIDIA L4
| Model | Score | Memory at Q4_K_M | Context | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemma 4 27B ⭐ | 97.4 | 17.1 GB | 125K | Gemma License (commercial OK) |
| Mistral Small 3.1 24B | 95.9 | 15 GB | 125K | Apache 2.0 |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 95.9 | 17.6 GB | 256K | Apache-2.0 |
| Qwen 3.7 35B-A3B | 95.2 | 21.9 GB | 256K | Apache-2.0 |
| Qwen 3 32B | 95.1 | 20.6 GB | 125K | Apache 2.0 |
| Gemma 4 31B | 94.8 | 19.5 GB | 250K | Apache-2.0 |
Best model by what you are doing
| Workload | Recommended on this GPU |
|---|---|
| Coding | Qwen 3.7 35B-A3B (98.5) Qwen 3 32B (98) Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B (97.8) |
| General assistant | Gemma 4 27B ⭐ (97.4) Mistral Small 3.1 24B (95.9) Qwen3.8 27B (95.9) |
| Reasoning | Gemma 4 27B ⭐ (100) GLM-4.7 / GLM-Z1 GLM-Z1 32B (Reasoning) (99.2) Qwen 3 32B (98.3) |
| RAG | Gemma 4 31B (97.5) Qwen 3.6 27B (96.7) Qwen3.8 27B (95.9) |
| Agents | Ternary Bonsai 27B (94) Nemotron-Cascade 2 30B-A3B (92.8) Devstral Small 2 24B (92.6) |
| Vision | Qwen 3.7 35B-A3B (98.1) Gemma 4 31B (97.8) Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B (97.4) |
What the NVIDIA L4 cannot run
These models are strong picks generally but exceed the 24 GB this card makes available.
| Model | Needs at Q4_K_M | Short by |
|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | 43.1 GB | ~19.1 GB |
How these numbers are calculated
- Usable memory is 24 GB of the card's 24 GB.
- Fit is measured at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus KV cache plus 0.8 GB runtime overhead.
- Within this card's budget, models are ranked on how well they use the memory available, not on being small — so the recommendation scales with the hardware.
FAQ
What is the best LLM for the NVIDIA L4?
Gemma 4 27B ⭐ is the strongest all-round pick that fits its 24 GB.
What is the largest model the NVIDIA L4 can run?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct — 36B parameters, needing 22.6 GB at Q4_K_M.
How much of the NVIDIA L4's memory can a model actually use?
About 24 GB of its 24 GB, before the desktop and runtime overhead are accounted for.
Similar GPUs
- Best models for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU
- Best models for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti
- Best models for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
- Best models for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
By Workload
- Best local LLMs for coding
- Best local LLMs for general assistant
- Best local LLMs for reasoning
- Best local LLMs for rag