Qwen-Image 2.1 on 8 GB of VRAM
Download Q5_K_M (5.0 GB). With the model's working memory it needs about 7.3 GB, leaving 0.7 GB spare on 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.
Worth trying on NVIDIA GPUs: with an up-to-date ComfyUI, Dynamic VRAM (on by default for NVIDIA since March 2026) streams whatever does not fit from system RAM, and ComfyUI's own start-up message recommends native FP8/INT8 files over GGUF, saying they “will be faster even if they are larger than your memory”. So before settling for a heavily compressed GGUF, try the native INT8 file (7.3 GB). The file recommended above is the best one that fits entirely — the safe choice on older ComfyUI versions, AMD and Intel. Comfy blog: 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). The 16-bit text encoder is a little more faithful; the smaller one is chosen here because it loads faster and needs less RAM. Sizes read from Hugging Face (2026-09-25). “Download” links start the file directly; the file name links are the same files the official ComfyUI workflows use.
System RAM: 32 GB or more. ComfyUI keeps the model file, the text encoder and the VAE in system RAM and moves them to the GPU as needed. With this set of files that is about 15.0 GB, plus roughly 6 GB for Windows, ComfyUI and a browser: 21.0 GB in total. With less RAM it still runs, but Windows starts swapping to disk and loading gets very slow. calculated
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 → |
Sizes from the Hugging Face file listing, read 2026-09-25. “Needed” = file + 1.5 GB working memory for this model + 0.8 GB kept free for the system.
03The text encoder
Qwen3-VL 8B: 17.5 GB as 16-bit, 9.4 GB as INT8. ComfyUI encodes the prompt first and can push the encoder out of VRAM before sampling, so it does not have to fit together with the model. On 8 GB the encoder itself is too big for VRAM, so let it run from system RAM: slower prompt encoding, same images.