on

Can the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 run Llama Guard 4 12B?

66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.

Yes, but slowly

Slow. At Q8_0 it needs about 16.1 GB of 48.0 GB usable and makes one decision in about 699 ms.

Best quant
Q8_0
Time per decision
699 ms
Decisions per second
1.4/s
Input assumed
512 tokens
Returns
Fixed labels

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000

On Windows

vLLM

Inference server · runs on vLLM

  • The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
  • On Windows it runs through WSL2.
vllm serve meta-llama/Llama-Guard-4-12B
  • SGLang The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
  • Sentence Transformers A few lines of Python with Transformers or Sentence Transformers; easiest for scripts and notebooks.

On Linux

vLLM

Inference server · runs on vLLM

  • The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
vllm serve meta-llama/Llama-Guard-4-12B
  • SGLang The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
  • Docker Model Runner Handy if you already work in Docker.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Llama Guard 4 12B

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Meta, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/meta-llama/Llama-Guard-4-12B (opens in a new tab)

Free Hugging Face account needed: request access on the model page, and Meta approves it (usually within minutes to a few hours).

Links checked 2 hours ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.
How capable the model itself is at Q8_0, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Slow
How well it runs on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000: speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

PrecisionEditorial precision tier from the model’s published benchmarks, scaled by the quantization or precision used.29.7 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.25.0 / 25
SpeedTime for one decision against a 100 ms target: reading the input plus any tokens the model writes.5.7 / 15
ClarityHow easy the answer is to use in code: a probability or score earns the most, written feedback before a score the least.12.0 / 15
Match score72.4 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000

Quant Memory needed Available Speed Runs Quality Download
Q4_K_M 10.7 GB 48.0 GB 615 ms Slow 62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. All files (opens in a new tab)
Q5_K_M 11.9 GB 48.0 GB 633 ms Slow 64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. All files (opens in a new tab)
Q6_K 13.2 GB 48.0 GB 653 ms Slow 65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. All files (opens in a new tab)
Q8_0 16.1 GB 48.0 GB 699 ms Slow 66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. All files (opens in a new tab)
F16 27.4 GB 48.0 GB 900 ms Slow 66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Times are for one request with a 512-token input and about 6 tokens written. Batching servers process many requests at once.

Other hardware that runs it

Quick answers

How much memory does Llama Guard 4 12B need on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 16.1 GB. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB has 48.0 GB usable.

How fast is Llama Guard 4 12B on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB?

It makes one decision in about 699 ms at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware and the size of the model.

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.

Was this page helpful?