Falcon 3 10B Instruct — VRAM, speed & local setup
Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated
Falcon's flagship consumer model. Beats Llama 3 8B on MMLU and competes with larger models. The best commercially-licensed model for 8GB+ VRAM cards.
Falcon 3 10B Instruct needs about 7 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache. On Apple Silicon that figure comes out of unified memory.
VRAM and speed by quantization
Quoted against NVIDIA RTX 4090 (24 GB). Includes the KV cache at 8K context, so it reads higher than the headline figure.
| Quant | Memory | VRAM | Speed (est.) | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2_K 2.63 bpw | 5.5 GB | ~131 tok/s | Fits | |
| Q3_K_M 3.41 bpw | 6.5 GB | ~112 tok/s | Fits | |
| Q4_K_M 4.83 bpw | 8.4 GB | ~88 tok/s | Fits | |
| Q5_K_M 5.67 bpw | 9.4 GB | ~78 tok/s | Fits | |
| Q6_K 6.56 bpw | 10.6 GB | ~70 tok/s | Fits | |
| Q8_0 8.50 bpw | 13.1 GB | ~57 tok/s | Fits | |
| F16 16.00 bpw | 22.7 GB | ~33 tok/s | Tight |
Black marker = usable memory on the NVIDIA RTX 4090 (24 GB). Estimates from the memory-bandwidth roofline on the methodology page. Falcon 3 10B Instruct VRAM calculator →
Get Falcon 3 10B Instruct running
The cheapest catalogued GPU that runs Falcon 3 10B Instruct is the Intel Arc B570 (10 GB).
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How to run Falcon 3 10B Instruct
Install Ollama, then run:
ollama run falcon3:10bSpecifications
Curated — A hand-written entry from before this catalogue recorded its sources. The figures are long-standing but their provenance is not on file.
- Parameters
- 10 Billion
- Context window
- 32,768
- Architecture
- Dense
- Provider
- TII (UAE)
- Licence
- Apache 2.0
- Practical deployment
- Laptop
- Specified at
- Q4_K_M
- System RAM
- 16 GB
- Record updated
- 2024-12-18
Commercial use permitted. No usage restrictions beyond attribution.
Quality and use cases
Scores as published by the model’s authors or an independent evaluator — quality, not throughput, and not measured by us.
Can I run Falcon 3 10B Instruct on my GPU?
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on Intel Arc B570
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on Intel Arc B580
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB)
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB
- Falcon 3 10B Instruct on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070
Other Falcon 3 sizes
Falcon 3 10B Instruct — frequently asked questions
How much VRAM does Falcon 3 10B Instruct need?
About 7 GB at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache. The cache grows with context length and is added on top; the table above folds it in. Apple Silicon counts unified memory toward the same figure.
Does Falcon 3 10B Instruct run on an RTX 4090 (24 GB)?
Yes. Falcon 3 10B Instruct needs about 7 GB at Q4_K_M, inside a 24 GB card, at an estimated 88 tokens/sec.
How do I run Falcon 3 10B Instruct locally?
Install Ollama and run `ollama run falcon3:10b`. That pulls the weights and starts a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint; after the download nothing leaves the machine.
What other sizes does Falcon 3 come in?
Falcon 3 3B Instruct (3 GB), Falcon 3 7B Instruct (5 GB), Falcon 3 10B Instruct (7 GB). Every size shares the family's training and licence; the larger ones score higher and need proportionally more memory.