Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium on 6 GB of VRAM
Yes, but only just: Q8_0 leaves 1.3 GB free on 6 GB. The 2.5B member of SD 3.5. The model itself is small; its T5 text encoder is bigger than the model.
Runs well
Yes, just.
Q8_0 (2.9 GB) fits with only 1.3 GB to spare (about 4.7 GB of 6 GB).
Best fileQ8_0
File size2.9 GB
VRAM needed~4.7 GB
System RAM16 GB+
Memory map · 6 GB GPU4.7 GB / 6 GB
03 GB6 GB
Weights Q8_0 · 2.9 GBWorking memory · 1.0 GBReserve · 0.8 GBFree · 1.3 GB
calculated How this is counted.
01What to download
| Part | File | Folder | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | sd3.5_medium-Q8_0.gguf Q8_0 · city96/stable-diffusion-3.5-medium-gguf | models/unet | 2.9 GB | Download → |
| Text encoder | t5xxl_fp8_e4m3fn.safetensors T5-XXL FP8 · Comfy-Org/stable-diffusion-3.5-fp8 | models/text_encoders | 4.9 GB | Download → |
| Text encoder | clip_l.safetensors CLIP-L · Comfy-Org/stable-diffusion-3.5-fp8 | models/text_encoders | 0.2 GB | Download → |
| Text encoder | clip_g.safetensors CLIP-G · Comfy-Org/stable-diffusion-3.5-fp8 | models/text_encoders | 1.4 GB | Download → |
| VAE | diffusion_pytorch_model.safetensors SD 3.5 VAE (gated repo: log in and accept the licence first) · stabilityai/stable-diffusion-3.5-medium | models/vae | 0.2 GB | Download → |
| Total download · keep about the same free on disk | 9.6 GB | |||
Alternatives: T5-XXL FP16 (9.8 GB). Sizes from Hugging Face, 2026-10-01.
02Every file, on 6 GB
| File | Size | Needed | On this card | Quality | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16-bit SAFETENSORS · stabilityai | 5.1 GB | 6.9 GB | spills 0.9 GB | the original weights | Hugging Face → |
| Q8_0 ← GGUF · city96 | 2.9 GB | 4.7 GB | fits · 1.3 GB spare | practically identical to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q6_K GGUF · city96 | 2.3 GB | 4.1 GB | fits · 1.9 GB spare | very close to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q5_K_M GGUF · city96 | 2.1 GB | 3.9 GB | fits · 2.1 GB spare | close; small differences in fine detail | Hugging Face → |
| Q4_K_M GGUF · city96 | 1.8 GB | 3.6 GB | fits · 2.4 GB spare | good; some loss in fine detail and text | Hugging Face → |
| Q3_K_M GGUF · city96 | 1.5 GB | 3.3 GB | fits · 2.7 GB spare | noticeable loss of detail | Hugging Face → |
“Needed” adds 1 GB of working memory for SD 3.5 Medium and a 0.8 GB reserve. Sizes 2026-10-01.