Products · QNAP · NAS
QNAP TVS-972XU
- Processor
- Intel Core i3-8100 / Pentium (8th gen desktop)
- Memory (RAM)
- 4 or 64 GB
- Released
- 2018
Product page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued Full AI report
Configurations
Pick one to see which models it runs. More memory lets larger models fit; bandwidth sets how fast they answer.
| Configuration | Memory | Usable for AI | Bandwidth | LLMs that run well | Launch price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i3-8100 / Pentium (8th gen desktop) | 4.0 GB | 2.0 GB | 43 GB/s | 65 of 622 | — |
| Intel Core i3-8100 / Pentium (8th gen desktop) · upgraded to the maker's maximum | 64.0 GB | 54.4 GB | 43 GB/s | 203 of 622 | — |
Specifications 4.0 GB configuration
| Maker | QNAP |
|---|---|
| Type | NAS |
| Processor | Intel Core i3-8100 / Pentium (8th gen desktop) NAS (4 GB) |
| Memory (RAM) | 4.0 GB |
| Usable for AI models | 2.0 GB |
| Memory bandwidth | 43 GB/s |
| FP16 compute | 0.2 TFLOPS |
| Runs models on | CPU cores |
| Drive bays | 4 x 3.5-inch + 5 x 2.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s |
| NAS system | QTS |
| Containers (Docker) | Yes |
| Virtual machines | Yes |
| Memory upgrade | DDR4 UDIMM · 4 slots · up to 64.0 GB per the maker |
| Graphics card options | PCIe: 1 ; Slot 1: PCIe Gen 3 x16. |
| Availability | Discontinued (sold used or refurbished) |
| Notes | Intel Core i3-8100 4-core 3.6 GHz Processor. x86-64 with up to 64 GB RAM and Container Station; Ollama runs CPU-only per QNAP's tutorial (>=8 GB for 3B, >=16 GB for 7B models). QNAP does not list a GPU-capable slot for this model, so its own on-prem Qsirch LLM (GPU required) is not available. No token speeds published. |
| Product page | www.qnap.com (opens in a new tab)Discontinued |
Running AI on the QNAP TVS-972XU
Yes, it runs AI models on the NAS itself. Models run on its CPU cores, and this configuration leaves about 2.0 GB for them after the NAS system and its storage services. The grades below assume the NAS isn’t busy with backups or media work at the same time. More memory is the upgrade that matters most: see the configurations.
Apps you can install to run models
| App | How it installs |
|---|---|
| Ollama | In a container (Docker) |
| Open WebUI | In a container (Docker) |
AI features from QNAP
| Feature | What it does | Where the AI runs |
|---|---|---|
| QuMagie + QNAP AI Core | Photo management with on-device face, object and scene recognition (QNAP AI Core image-recognition engine). | On the NAS |
| Qsirch AI Semantic Search | Natural-language/semantic file and image search computed locally; QNAP requires a 64-bit x86 NAS with at least 8 GB RAM. | On the NAS |
| Qsirch RAG Search (cloud LLM mode) | Chat with NAS files using a cloud LLM (Gemini, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI or OpenAI-compatible API); the model runs remotely. | Cloud service or another computer |
| AI Service Center (beta) cloud models | Central hub for connecting NAS apps to cloud models (OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, OpenAI-compatible); local model library is limited to x86 NAS with a tested GPU (third-party report). | Cloud service or another computer |
Best LLMs for the QNAP TVS-972XU 4.0 GB
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 53Fair quality (C) · 53 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LFM3 1.7B | Q4_K_M | 1.9 GB | 16.8 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 39Basic quality (D) · 39 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. | PaddleOCR-VL 1.6 0.9B | Q4_K_M | 1.5 GB | 30.3 tok/s | Runs great |
| 39Basic quality (D) · 39 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniCPM-OCR 1.0 1.3B | Q4_K_M | 1.7 GB | 22.4 tok/s | Runs well |
| 42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LFM3-VL 2B | Q3_K_M | 1.8 GB | 19.6 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 34Basic quality (D) · 34 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 67/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniCPM5 1B | Q4_K_M | 1.6 GB | 27.0 tok/s | Runs well |
| 33Basic quality (D) · 33 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B | Q3_K_M | 1.6 GB | 24.3 tok/s | Runs well |
| 26Basic quality (D) · 26 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 65/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LFM2.5 1.2B Instruct | Q3_K_M | 1.4 GB | 32.2 tok/s | Runs great |
| 24Basic quality (D) · 24 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.5 0.8B | Q4_K_M | 1.4 GB | 33.5 tok/s | Runs great |
| 33Basic quality (D) · 33 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | TMax 2B | Q3_K_M | 1.8 GB | 20.0 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
| 33Basic quality (D) · 33 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 63/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3.5 2B | Q3_K_M | 2.0 GB | 16.6 tok/s | Runs welltight fit |
Best Image models for the QNAP TVS-972XU 4.0 GB
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 39Basic quality (D) · 39 of 100: how capable the model is at FP8, whatever it runs on. Match score 53/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | SDXL Turbo | FP8 | 1.6 GB | 29 s | Runs wellCPU offload |
| 28Basic quality (D) · 28 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 50/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | SD Turbo | FP16 | 1.3 GB | 17 s | Runs wellCPU offload |
| 42Fair quality (C) · 42 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 48/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Realistic Vision V5.1 | FP16 | 1.3 GB | 4.3 min | Very slowCPU offload |
| 40Fair quality (C) · 40 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 47/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | DreamShaper 8 | FP16 | 1.3 GB | 4.3 min | Very slowCPU offload |
| 30Basic quality (D) · 30 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 46/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | LCM DreamShaper v7 | FP16 | 1.3 GB | 54 s | SlowCPU offload |
| 35Basic quality (D) · 35 of 100: how capable the model is at FP16, whatever it runs on. Match score 45/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Stable Diffusion 1.5 | FP16 | 1.3 GB | 4.3 min | Very slowCPU offload |
Best Video models for the QNAP TVS-972XU 4.0 GB
None of the video models in our catalog fit in this much memory.
Best Decision models for the QNAP TVS-972XU 4.0 GB
| Quality | Model | Quant | Memory | Speed | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 86Excellent quality (A+) · 86 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3.5 | Q8_0 | 1.6 GB | 3.9 s | Very slow |
| 84Great quality (A) · 84 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 80/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Jina Reranker v3 | Q8_0 | 1.6 GB | 3.9 s | Very slow |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLiNER2.5 Decide | Q8_0 | 1.2 GB | 1.7 s | Very slow |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | FRIDA-Decisions | Q8_0 | 1.7 GB | 2.9 s | Very slow |
| 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Qwen3 Reranker 0.6B | Q8_0 | 1.6 GB | 3.9 s | Very slow |
| 76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Llama Prompt Guard 2 86M | Q8_0 | 1.0 GB | 2.0 s | Very slow |
| 68Good quality (B) · 68 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | Llama Prompt Guard 2 22M | Q8_0 | 0.7 GB | 498 ms | Slow |
| 74Great quality (A) · 74 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 77/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. | GLiClass ModernBERT Large v3 | Q8_0 | 1.1 GB | 1.4 s | Very slow |
Other products with the Intel Core i3-8100 / Pentium (8th gen desktop) NAS (4 GB)
TVS-472XTProduct page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued
TVS-672NProduct page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued
TVS-872XUProduct page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued
TVS-872XU-RPProduct page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued
TVS-1272XU-RPProduct page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued
TVS-972XU-RPProduct page (opens in a new tab)Discontinued
Spec sources
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.