MiniCPM5 2B VRAM requirements

MiniCPM5 2B needs about 2.42 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M with 8K context, so it fits an 8 GB card such as the RTX 4060 8GB. MiniCPM5 2B has 2.5B parameters. With the same 8K context and one request it needs 3.44 GB at FP8 and 6.02 GB at FP16/BF16. The published weights take 4.69 GB (BF16). The smallest setup here that holds it at Q4_K_M with an 8K context is the RTX 4060 8GB; on one 24 GB RTX 3090 / 4090 it runs with its full 128K-token context.

2.42 GB at Q4_K_M, 8K context, one request

FP8
3.44 GB
FP16 / BF16
6.02 GB
Published weights
4.69 GB
Smallest setup, Q4_K_M
RTX 4060 8GB
Open MiniCPM5 2B in the calculator

Worked example: MiniCPM5 2B with 32K tokens

Inputs: MiniCPM5 2B · Q4_K_M weights · 32,768 tokens of context · one request · FP16 KV cache

Weights (2.5B at Q4_K_M)
1.42 GB
KV cache (42 KB per token)
1.31 GB
Buffers and runtime (0.5 GB + 10%)
792 MB
Total
3.50 GB

The smallest setup here that holds it is the RTX 4060 8GB, with about 4.50 GB to spare. Change the inputs in the calculator

What makes MiniCPM5 2B's memory use different

Per token of context it adds 42 KB of FP16 cache; Granite 4.2 3B (3.7B), the nearest-sized model here with plain full attention, adds 80 KB, so MiniCPM5 2B needs 48% less.

How much VRAM does MiniCPM5 2B need?

MiniCPM5 2B needs 2.42 GB at Q4_K_M, 3.60 GB at Q8_0 and 6.02 GB at FP16 with 8,192 tokens of context and one request. Each total below is the weights plus the FP16 KV cache and the runtime overhead (0.5 GB plus 10%), and each row opens the calculator with that setting. What the GGUF names mean.

PrecisionWeightsTotalSmallest setup
As published (BF16) 4.69 GB 6.02 GB RTX 4060 8GB
FP16 / BF16 4.69 GB 6.02 GB RTX 4060 8GB
FP8 / INT8 2.34 GB 3.44 GB RTX 4060 8GB
INT4 (AWQ / GPTQ) 1.25 GB 2.23 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF Q8_0 2.49 GB 3.60 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF Q6_K 1.92 GB 2.98 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF Q5_K_M 1.66 GB 2.69 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF Q4_K_M 1.42 GB 2.42 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF IQ4_XS 1.27 GB 2.26 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF Q3_K_M 1.15 GB 2.12 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF IQ3_XXS 990 MB 1.92 GB RTX 4060 8GB
GGUF Q2_K 1,005 MB 1.94 GB RTX 4060 8GB

Fine-tuning MiniCPM5 2B? MiniCPM5 2B VRAM for LoRA, QLoRA and full training.

MiniCPM5 2B GGUF files on Hugging Face

The 8 GGUF files llama.cpp picks for MiniCPM5 2B with -hf <repo>:<QUANT>, with the bytes the Hugging Face file list reported on 2026-09-29. Each total is that file plus the FP16 KV cache and 0.5 GB + 10%, one request. "vs estimate" compares the file with the bits-per-weight size the table above uses.

QuantFileSizevs estimate 8K32K128K
Q2_K bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 967 MB1,014,320,352 bytes −4% 1.90 GB2.98 GB7.31 GB
Q3_K_M bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 1.15 GB1,236,085,984 bytes ±0% 2.13 GB3.21 GB7.54 GB
IQ4_XS bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 1.36 GB1,463,942,368 bytes +7% 2.36 GB3.44 GB7.77 GB
Q4_K_M bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 1.50 GB1,615,826,144 bytes +6% 2.52 GB3.60 GB7.93 GB
Q5_K_M bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 1.79 GB1,920,175,328 bytes +8% 2.83 GB3.91 GB8.24 GB
Q6_K bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 1.96 GB2,107,305,184 bytes +2% 3.02 GB4.10 GB8.43 GB
Q8_0 bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 2.50 GB2,679,712,992 bytes ±0% 3.61 GB4.69 GB9.02 GB
BF16 bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF 4.69 GB5,039,008,704 bytes ±0% 6.02 GB7.11 GB11.4 GB

GB here is GiB (1024³ bytes), as everywhere on this site; Hugging Face shows the Q4_K_M file as 1.6 GB, in 10⁹ bytes.

Which MiniCPM5 2B GGUF fits a 16, 24, 32, 48 or 80 GB GPU or a Mac

From the file sizes above: the largest file that fits each machine with an 8K context and 0.5 GB left free, the longest context it then has room for, and the longest context for Q4_K_M (1.50 GB). One request, FP16 KV cache.

HardwareLargest GGUF, 8KIts longest contextQ4_K_M, longest context
RTX 5060 Ti 16GB BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)
RTX 4090 (24 GB) BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)
RTX 5090 (32 GB) BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)
L40S (48 GB) BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)
H100 SXM (80 GB) BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)
M4 Pro Mac (64 GB, 48 GB usable) BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)
M4 Max Mac (128 GB, 96 GB usable) BF16, 4.69 GB 128K (full) 128K (full)

Run MiniCPM5 2B with llama.cpp

llama-server -hf bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF:Q4_K_M -c 131072

MiniCPM5-2B-Q4_K_M.gguf, 1.6 GB, from bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF (checked 2026-09-29). On a 24 GB RTX 3090 / 4090, Q4_K_M with -c 131072 takes 7.93 GB and leaves 16.1 GB.

MiniCPM5 2B at 8K, 32K and 128K (full) tokens of context

All 42 layers use full attention. Each extra token of context adds 42 KB of FP16 cache per request. The last column is the smallest setup here, one card or a group, that holds it at Q4_K_M. How the KV cache works.

ContextKV cache, FP16Total at Q4_K_MTotal at Q8_0Smallest setup, Q4_K_M
8K tokens 336 MB 2.42 GB 3.60 GB RTX 4060 8GB
32K tokens 1.31 GB 3.50 GB 4.68 GB RTX 4060 8GB
128K tokens 5.25 GB 7.83 GB 9.01 GB RTX 4060 8GB

How fast MiniCPM5 2B writes

Tokens per second for one request with 8,192 tokens of context, estimated from memory bandwidth. A dash means it does not fit on one card. Try other settings in the speed calculator.

HardwareBandwidthQ4_K_MFP8
RTX 3060 12GB 360 GB/s 91–13463–90
RTX 4090 1,008 GB/s 205–336150–233
RTX 5090 1,792 GB/s 294–528227–380
M4 Max Mac (128 GB) 546 GB/s 129–19790–133
M3 Ultra Mac Studio (512 GB) 819 GB/s 177–281127–193
H100 SXM 3,350 GB/s 397–802327–609
H200 4,800 GB/s 452–980387–771

Longest context on one GPU

How many tokens of context MiniCPM5 2B fits on a single card with one request, an FP16 KV cache and 0.5 GB left free. "Full" means the model's whole context window fits.

GPUMemoryQ4_K_MQ8_0FP8
RTX 3060 12 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
RTX 4060 Ti 16GB 16 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
RTX 3090 / 4090 24 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
RTX 5090 32 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
A100 40GB 40 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
Mac, 64 GB unified memory 48 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
L40S / RTX 6000 Ada 48 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
A100 / H100 80GB 80 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
Mac, 128 GB unified memory 96 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
H200 141 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)
B200 180 GB 128K (full)128K (full)128K (full)

Model details

Parameters
2.5B (2,516,756,480)
Layers
All 42 layers use full attention
Attention cache
2 KV heads × 128
Context length
131,072 tokens
Published weights
4.69 GB (BF16)
On Hugging Face
openbmb/MiniCPM5-2B
Reported benchmarks
MMLU-Pro 70.8 · LiveCodeBench v6 69.1. Vendor-reported: from the maker’s own model card, not rerun here; read 2026-09-30.

Why this estimate looks this way

At Q4_K_M and an 8K-token context, MiniCPM5 2B uses 1.42 GB for weights, 336 MB for its FP16 KV cache and 691 MB for estimated runtime overhead, totaling 2.42 GB. The overhead is a 0.5 GB base plus 10% of weights and cache.

The architecture and published checkpoint size come from the model's config.json and weight files. These are estimates rather than measured peak memory; inference engines can reserve extra buffers or preallocate the full configured cache.

MiniCPM5 2B next to similar-sized models

The three models here closest to it in parameter count, at Q4_K_M with 8,192 tokens of context.

ModelParametersTotalKV per tokenSmallest setup
MiniCPM5 2B 2.5B 2.42 GB 42 KB RTX 4060 8GB
Granite 4.2 3B 3.7B 3.46 GB 80 KB RTX 4060 8GB
Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 4.0B 3.10 GB 16 KB RTX 4060 8GB
Spark-X2.5 4B 4.1B 3.47 GB 36 KB RTX 4060 8GB

MiniCPM5 2B VRAM questions

How much VRAM do I need to run MiniCPM5 2B locally?

About 2.42 GB at Q4_K_M with an 8K context and one request, by the bits-per-weight estimate, and 6.02 GB at BF16. The Q4_K_M GGUF MiniCPM5-2B-Q4_K_M.gguf in bartowski/MiniCPM5-2B-GGUF is 1,615,826,144 bytes (1.50 GB); with an 8K context it needs 2.52 GB. The smallest setup listed here that holds Q4_K_M is the RTX 4060 8GB.

Can I run MiniCPM5 2B on a 24 GB GPU?

Yes. On the RTX 4090 (24 GB), the largest listed GGUF that fits with an 8K context and 0.5 GB free is BF16 (4.69 GB), with its full 128K-token context.

Which quantization of MiniCPM5 2B fits in 16 GB of VRAM?

On the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, the largest listed GGUF that fits with an 8K context and 0.5 GB free is BF16 (4.69 GB), with its full 128K-token context.

Can I run MiniCPM5 2B on a Mac?

On the M4 Pro Mac (64 GB, 48 GB usable), the largest listed GGUF that fits with an 8K context and 0.5 GB free is BF16 (4.69 GB), with its full 128K-token context. On the M4 Max Mac (128 GB, 96 GB usable), the largest listed GGUF that fits with an 8K context and 0.5 GB free is BF16 (4.69 GB), with its full 128K-token context. By default macOS lets the GPU use about 75% of unified memory.

How much more VRAM does MiniCPM5 2B need for 32K or 128K tokens of context?

Its FP16 KV cache is 336 MB at 8K, 1.31 GB at 32K, 5.25 GB at 128K for one request, so 128K adds 4.92 GB over 8K, plus 10% overhead. A q8_0 cache (-ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0) takes 2.79 GB at 128K.

Why does MiniCPM5 2B use more VRAM than its GGUF file size?

The file holds only the weights. At Q4_K_M with an 8K context: 1.50 GB of weights (the file's 1,615,826,144 bytes) + 336 MB of FP16 KV cache + 700 MB of compute buffers and runtime (0.5 GB + 10%) = 2.52 GB.

Badge for your model card

Paste it into a Hugging Face or GitHub README; it shows the Q4_K_M total above and links to this page. Q8_0 and FP16 badges.

MiniCPM5 2B VRAM: 2.42 GB at Q4_K_M, 8K context

Numbers read from the model files on Hugging Face on . Compare it with other models in the reproducible model and GPU report.