Qwen-Image 2.1 on 8 GB of VRAM
Not at full quality. The 16-bit and 8-bit files are too big for 8 GB; the largest that fits is Q5_K_M (5.0 GB). September 2026: a new 7B model that does text-to-image and editing in one, with transparent-background (RGBA) output. Far lighter than the 20B Qwen-Image.
Q5_K_M (5.0 GB) fits with only 0.7 GB to spare (about 7.3 GB of 8 GB). Quality: close; small differences in fine detail. For better quality, Q6_K (5.9 GB) also runs, with about 0.2 GB spilling into system RAM - a little slower, still practical.
Also try the INT8 file (7.3 GB) on NVIDIA GPUs. It does not fit entirely, but a current ComfyUI streams the overflow from RAM and native 8-bit files often beat a small GGUF that does fit. Dynamic VRAM →
01What to download
| Part | File | Folder | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | qwen_image_2.1_Q5_K_M.gguf Q5_K_M · Abiray/Qwen-Image-2.1-GGUF | models/unet | 5.0 GB | Download → |
| Text encoder | qwen3vl_8b_int8_convrot.safetensors Qwen3-VL 8B INT8 · Comfy-Org/Qwen-Image-2.1 | models/text_encoders | 9.4 GB | Download → |
| VAE | qwen_image_2.1_vae_bf16.safetensors Qwen-Image 2.1 VAE · Comfy-Org/Qwen-Image-2.1 | models/vae | 0.7 GB | Download → |
| Total download · keep about the same free on disk | 15.0 GB | |||
Alternatives: Qwen3-VL 8B BF16 (17.5 GB). Sizes from Hugging Face, 2026-10-01.
Free ComfyUI workflow, tested on my RTX 5060 Ti: INT8 workflow (.json). Drag the file into ComfyUI. All workflows →
02Every file, on 8 GB
| File | Size | Needed | On this card | Quality | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16-bit SAFETENSORS · Comfy-Org | 14.2 GB | 16.5 GB | 8.5 GB too big | the original weights | Hugging Face → |
| Q8_0 GGUF · Abiray | 7.6 GB | 9.9 GB | spills 1.9 GB | practically identical to the original | Hugging Face → |
| INT8 SAFETENSORS · Comfy-Org | 7.3 GB | 9.6 GB | spills 1.6 GB | practically identical to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q6_K GGUF · Abiray | 5.9 GB | 8.2 GB | spills 0.2 GB | very close to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q5_K_M ← GGUF · Abiray | 5.0 GB | 7.3 GB | fits · 0.7 GB spare | close; small differences in fine detail | Hugging Face → |
| Q4_K_M GGUF · Abiray | 4.2 GB | 6.5 GB | fits · 1.5 GB spare | good; some loss in fine detail and text | Hugging Face → |
| Q3_K_M GGUF · Abiray | 3.2 GB | 5.5 GB | fits · 2.5 GB spare | noticeable loss of detail | Hugging Face → |
“Needed” adds 1.5 GB of working memory for Qwen-Image 2.1 and a 0.8 GB reserve. Sizes 2026-10-01.
03The text encoder
At 9.4 GB even the smallest Qwen3-VL 8B file is too big for 8 GB, so it runs from system RAM. That slows down reading the prompt, not the picture. Sizes: 16-bit 17.5 GB, INT8 9.4 GB. Why the encoder does not count against VRAM →