Qwen-Image on 8 GB of VRAM
Not entirely. Even Q2_K is 1.9 GB over 8 GB, so ComfyUI keeps part of it in system RAM. Alibaba's 20B text-to-image model, known for rendering long text and posters well. Big: the 8-bit file alone is over 20 GB.
Nothing fits entirely, but Q2_K (7.1 GB) overflows by only about 1.9 GB. ComfyUI keeps that part in system RAM automatically: slower than a full fit, but usable.
Also try the FP8 file (20.4 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 →
01Other amounts of VRAM
02Every file, on 8 GB
| File | Size | Needed | On this card | Quality | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16-bit SAFETENSORS · Comfy-Org | 40.9 GB | 43.7 GB | 35.7 GB too big | the original weights | Hugging Face → |
| Q8_0 GGUF · city96 | 21.8 GB | 24.6 GB | 16.6 GB too big | practically identical to the original | Hugging Face → |
| FP8 SAFETENSORS · Comfy-Org | 20.4 GB | 23.2 GB | 15.2 GB too big | practically identical to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q6_K GGUF · city96 | 16.8 GB | 19.6 GB | 11.6 GB too big | very close to the original | Hugging Face → |
| Q5_K_M GGUF · city96 | 14.9 GB | 17.7 GB | 9.7 GB too big | close; small differences in fine detail | Hugging Face → |
| Q4_K_M GGUF · city96 | 13.1 GB | 15.9 GB | 7.9 GB too big | good; some loss in fine detail and text | Hugging Face → |
| Q3_K_M GGUF · city96 | 9.7 GB | 12.5 GB | 4.5 GB too big | noticeable loss of detail | Hugging Face → |
| Q2_K ← GGUF · city96 | 7.1 GB | 9.9 GB | spills 1.9 GB | heavy loss; a last resort | Hugging Face → |
“Needed” adds 2 GB of working memory for Qwen-Image and a 0.8 GB reserve. Sizes 2026-10-01.
03What to download
| Part | File | Folder | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | qwen-image-Q2_K.gguf Q2_K · city96/Qwen-Image-gguf | models/unet | 7.1 GB | Download → |
| Text encoder | qwen_2.5_vl_7b_fp8_scaled.safetensors Qwen2.5-VL 7B FP8 · Comfy-Org/Qwen-Image_ComfyUI | models/text_encoders | 9.4 GB | Download → |
| VAE | qwen_image_vae.safetensors Qwen-Image VAE · Comfy-Org/Qwen-Image_ComfyUI | models/vae | 0.3 GB | Download → |
| Total download · keep about the same free on disk | 16.7 GB | |||
Alternatives: Qwen2.5-VL 7B BF16 (16.6 GB). Sizes from Hugging Face, 2026-10-01.
Free ComfyUI workflow, tested on my RTX 5060 Ti: GGUF Q4_K_M workflow (.json). Drag the file into ComfyUI. All workflows →
04The text encoder
At 9.4 GB even the smallest Qwen2.5-VL 7B 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 16.6 GB, FP8 9.4 GB. Why the encoder does not count against VRAM →