Mistral Family — local AI model by Mistral AI

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated January 28, 2025

Superseded model. Mistral Family has been superseded by Mistral Small 4. This page is kept for reference; the newer family is a better starting point. View Mistral Small 4 →

The European champion of open AI. Known for efficiency and the 'Nemo' collaborative model with NVIDIA. Mistral models are production-ready workhorses.

Mistral

Variants

The smallest Mistral Family variant needs about 8 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache.

Model	VRAM at Q4	VRAM	Context	Run it
Mistral Small 3 (24B) → 24B		~15.3 GB	32,000	`ollama run mistral-small`
Mistral NeMo 12B → 12B		~8 GB	128,000	`ollama run mistral-nemo`

Memory is quantized weights plus overhead at Q4_K_M, from the same engine as the GPU & VRAM checker.

How to run Mistral Family locally

Install Ollama, then pull the tag.

$ollama run mistral-small

Pick a size above for its own VRAM figure, speed estimate and install command.

Download Mistral Family — GGUF Quantizations

Pick a quantization and open it in LM Studio, Ollama, or Jan, or download the raw .gguf file directly. Quant list and sizes resolved from Hugging Face.

Mistral NeMo 12B — GGUF quants · bartowski/Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-GGUF

Quant	Size	Download (.gguf)
Q3_K_M	5.12 GB (est.)	Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-Q3_K_M.gguf
Q4_K_M	7.25 GB (est.)	Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-Q4_K_M.gguf
Q5_K_M	8.51 GB (est.)	Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-Q5_K_M.gguf
Q6_K	9.84 GB (est.)	Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-Q6_K.gguf
Q8_0	12.75 GB (est.)	Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-Q8_0.gguf

Download in LM Studio: lms get bartowski/Mistral-Nemo-Instruct-2407-GGUF

Want this model on your phone? You can run it on your desktop with LM Studio and chat from your iPhone or iPad over an encrypted link — see Run LM Studio Models on Your Phone (LM Link).

Licence

Apache-2.0Commercial use permitted

Commercial use permitted. No usage restrictions beyond attribution.

Applies to: Mistral Small 3 (24B), Mistral NeMo 12B

Recommended GPU

The cheapest catalogued GPU that runs Mistral Family locally (min 8 GB VRAM) is the Intel Arc B570 (10 GB).

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Intel Arc B570 10GB

10 GB VRAM · 150 W board power

2026 prices are volatile — check the current listing.

Check price on Amazon

Can I run Mistral Family on my GPU?

Mistral Family — frequently asked questions

How much VRAM does Mistral Family need?

Mistral Family needs about 8 GB VRAM at Q4_K_M quantization for its smallest variant. Variants: Mistral Small 3 (24B) (15 GB, Q4_K_M); Mistral NeMo 12B (8 GB, Q4_K_M). On Apple Silicon, unified memory counts toward this requirement.

Can I run Mistral Family on an RTX 4090 (24 GB)?

Yes — Mistral Family runs on an RTX 4090 (24 GB) and other 24 GB cards such as the RTX 3090. Smaller variants also fit comfortably on 8–16 GB GPUs at Q4_K_M.

What quantization should I use for Mistral Family?

Q4_K_M is the best balance of quality and VRAM for Mistral Family in most cases. Choose Q8_0 for near-lossless quality if you have spare VRAM, or smaller quants (Q3/Q2) only when memory is tight.

How do I run Mistral Family with Ollama?

Install Ollama, then run: ollama run mistral-small. This downloads Mistral Family and starts a local, OpenAI-compatible endpoint — no internet connection is needed after the initial download.

Official links

Mistral