Qwen3.6 27B VRAM requirements
Qwen3.6 27B has 27.8B parameters. With an 8K-token context and one request it needs about 18.3 GB of GPU memory at Q4_K_M, 29.5 GB at FP8 and 58.0 GB at FP16/BF16. The published weights take 51.7 GB (BF16). On one 24 GB RTX 3090 / 4090 it runs at Q4_K_M with up to 91K tokens of context.
Open Qwen3.6 27B in the calculator
VRAM by quantization
Weights plus the KV cache for 8,192 tokens in FP16 and the runtime overhead (0.5 GB plus 10%). Each row opens the calculator with that setting. What the GGUF names mean.
| Precision | Weights | Total | Smallest setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| As published (BF16) | 51.7 GB | 58.0 GB | A100 / H100 80GB |
| FP16 / BF16 | 51.7 GB | 58.0 GB | A100 / H100 80GB |
| FP8 / INT8 | 25.9 GB | 29.5 GB | RTX 5090 |
| INT4 (AWQ / GPTQ) | 13.7 GB | 16.2 GB | RTX 3090 / 4090 |
| GGUF Q8_0 | 27.5 GB | 31.3 GB | RTX 5090 |
| GGUF Q6_K | 21.2 GB | 24.4 GB | RTX 5090 |
| GGUF Q5_K_M | 18.3 GB | 21.2 GB | RTX 3090 / 4090 |
| GGUF Q4_K_M | 15.7 GB | 18.3 GB | RTX 3090 / 4090 |
| GGUF Q3_K_M | 12.6 GB | 15.0 GB | RTX 4060 Ti 16GB |
| GGUF Q2_K | 10.8 GB | 13.0 GB | RTX 4060 Ti 16GB |
KV cache at long context
16 of its 64 layers use full attention and 48 are linear-attention layers with no growing cache. Each extra token of context adds 64 KB of FP16 cache per request. How the KV cache works.
| Context | KV cache, FP16 | KV cache, FP8 | Total at Q4_K_M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4K tokens | 256 MB | 128 MB | 18.0 GB |
| 32K tokens | 2.00 GB | 1.00 GB | 19.9 GB |
| 128K tokens | 8.00 GB | 4.00 GB | 26.5 GB |
| 256K tokens | 16.0 GB | 8.00 GB | 35.3 GB |
Which GPUs can run Qwen3.6 27B
With 8,192 tokens of context. Several GPUs means one tensor-parallel group of 2, 4 or 8 cards.
| GPU | Memory | Q4_K_M | FP8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 | 12 GB | Needs 2 | Needs 4 |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | 16 GB | Needs 2 | Needs 2 |
| RTX 3090 / 4090 | 24 GB | Fits on one | Needs 2 |
| RTX 5090 | 32 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| A100 40GB | 40 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| Mac, 64 GB unified memory about 75% of it is usable by the GPU by default | 48 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| L40S / RTX 6000 Ada | 48 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| A100 / H100 80GB | 80 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| Mac, 128 GB unified memory about 75% of it is usable by the GPU by default | 96 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| H200 | 141 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| B200 | 180 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
How fast Qwen3.6 27B 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.
| Hardware | Bandwidth | Q4_K_M | FP8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 12GB | 360 GB/s | — | — |
| RTX 4090 | 1,008 GB/s | 31–43 | — |
| RTX 5090 | 1,792 GB/s | 52–75 | 33–46 |
| M4 Max Mac (128 GB) | 546 GB/s | 17–23 | 10–14 |
| M3 Ultra Mac Studio (512 GB) | 819 GB/s | 25–35 | 16–21 |
| H100 SXM | 3,350 GB/s | 92–135 | 59–85 |
| H200 | 4,800 GB/s | 124–188 | 82–120 |
Longest context on one GPU
How many tokens of context fit on a single card with one request and an FP16 KV cache. "Full" means the model's whole context window fits.
| GPU | Memory | Q4_K_M | Q8_0 | FP8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 | 12 GB | No | No | No |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | 16 GB | No | No | No |
| RTX 3090 / 4090 | 24 GB | 91K | No | No |
| RTX 5090 | 32 GB | 207K | 18K | 44K |
| A100 40GB | 40 GB | 256K (full) | 134K | 160K |
| Mac, 64 GB unified memory | 48 GB | 256K (full) | 251K | 256K (full) |
| L40S / RTX 6000 Ada | 48 GB | 256K (full) | 251K | 256K (full) |
| A100 / H100 80GB | 80 GB | 256K (full) | 256K (full) | 256K (full) |
| Mac, 128 GB unified memory | 96 GB | 256K (full) | 256K (full) | 256K (full) |
| H200 | 141 GB | 256K (full) | 256K (full) | 256K (full) |
| B200 | 180 GB | 256K (full) | 256K (full) | 256K (full) |
Model details
- Parameters
- 27.8B (27,781,427,952)
- Layers
- 16 of its 64 layers use full attention and 48 are linear-attention layers with no growing cache
- Attention cache
- 4 KV heads × 256
- Context length
- 262,144 tokens
- Published weights
- 51.7 GB (BF16)
- On Hugging Face
- Qwen/Qwen3.6-27B
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Numbers read from the model files on Hugging Face on .