Can the RTX 3060 12 GB run SDXL 1.0?
Yes. 16-bit fits on the RTX 3060 12 GB with 4.9 GB to spare.
Take 16-bit (6.9 GB). In use it comes to about 7.1 GB, with 4.9 GB left over on 12 GB.
01What to download
| Part | File | Folder | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Checkpoint | sd_xl_base_1.0.safetensors 16-bit · stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0 | models/checkpoints | 6.9 GB | Download → |
| Total download · keep about the same free on disk | 6.9 GB | |||
One file: the checkpoint already contains the text encoders and the VAE. Sizes from Hugging Face, 2026-10-01.
02Every SDXL file on 12 GB
| File | Size | Needed | On this card | Quality | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16-bit ← SAFETENSORS · stabilityai | 6.9 GB | 7.1 GB | fits · 4.9 GB spare | the original weights | Hugging Face → |
“Needed” adds 1.2 GB of working memory for SDXL and a 0.8 GB reserve. Sizes 2026-10-01. The 6.94 GB checkpoint also holds the two text encoders and the VAE. During sampling only the UNet (about 5.1 GB at 16-bit, 2.6B parameters) has to sit in VRAM, so that is the figure used for the 16-bit file.
03The text encoder
The text encoder is inside the checkpoint, so there is nothing extra to download.
04Measured and reported results
Nobody has sent measured numbers for this pair yet. If you run SDXL on a RTX 3060 12 GB, send your time per image and peak VRAM and it will appear here, credited.
05About the RTX 3060 12 GB
The RTX 3060 12 GB (Ampere) has no FP8 compute. FP8 files still load and save memory, but ComfyUI converts them back before the maths, so there is no speed gain - Q8_0 GGUF is the closer-to-original 8-bit choice. ComfyUI can compute INT8 files natively on NVIDIA, which is worth a try where a model offers one.
12 GB GDDR6 · 192-bit · 360 GB/s · Ampere. Everything that runs on it →
06Questions
How much VRAM does SDXL need?
Around 7.1 GB with the smallest file (16-bit).
Which SDXL file should I download for the RTX 3060 12 GB?
16-bit (6.9 GB) from stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0.
How much do I need to download for SDXL on the RTX 3060 12 GB?
6.9 GB: sd_xl_base_1.0.safetensors.