Mistral 7B vs Mistral Nemo 12B
Comparing VRAM requirements, performance, and capabilities for running these models locally with Ollama.
Parameters
7B
Context
32K
VRAM Range
5.7–16 GB
Recommended
Q8_0 (9 GB)
By Mistral AI · License Apache 2.0
Parameters
12B
Context
128K
VRAM Range
9.5–28 GB
Recommended
Q4_K_M (9.5 GB)
By Mistral AI · License Apache 2.0
VRAM Requirements by Quantization
Side-by-side memory needs at each quality level.
| Quantization | Mistral 7B | Mistral Nemo 12B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | 5.7 GB | 9.5 GB | -3.8 GB |
| Q8_0 | 9 GB | 16 GB | -7.0 GB |
| F16 | 16 GB | 28 GB | -12.0 GB |
Capabilities
Feature support comparison.
| Capability | Mistral 7B | Mistral Nemo 12B |
|---|---|---|
| text generation | Yes | Yes |
| code generation | Yes | Yes |
| multilingual | Yes | Yes |
| summarization | Yes | Yes |
| reasoning | — | Yes |
| tool use | — | Yes |
Benchmark Scores
Higher is better. Scores from published evaluations.
| Benchmark | Mistral 7B | Mistral Nemo 12B |
|---|---|---|
| mmlu | 62.5 | 68.0 |
Hardware Compatibility
Can each model run at recommended quantization on common VRAM tiers?
| VRAM | Mistral 7B | Mistral Nemo 12B |
|---|---|---|
| 8 GB | Offload | Offload |
| 12 GB | Runs | Runs |
| 16 GB | Runs | Runs |
| 24 GB | Runs | Runs |
| 32 GB | Runs | Runs |
| 48 GB | Runs | Runs |
| 64 GB | Runs | Runs |
| 96 GB | Runs | Runs |
Run Mistral 7B
ollama run 7b-instruct-q8_0 Run Mistral Nemo 12B
ollama run 12b-instruct-q4_K_M Check your exact hardware
Use the compatibility checker to see how each model performs on your specific GPU or Mac.