Search models that run on 8 GB

5 models with published weights that fit in 8 GB — a phone, a base iPad, an Air. Counted at four-bit quantisation, weights only, leaving the machine about a third of its memory and a gigabyte for context: room for roughly 7 billion parameters. A mixture of experts is counted in full, because it is held in full even though only a few experts compute.

The memory of a phone, a base iPad or an entry-level laptop. What fits is small: models of a few billion parameters, quick and cheap to run, good at summarising, classifying and simple extraction, and out of their depth on long reasoning. This is also where on-device makes the most sense, because the alternative is a network round trip for something that takes a moment.

Models, tools and agents that go and look something up — the open web, a set of documents, a grounded answer with citations. Pricing is usually per call or per result rather than per token, so the cost follows how often you ask. What differs is freshness, how much of each page you get back, and whether you are handed sources you can check or a summary you must trust.

Wider

Search models Models that run on 8 GB