Wan 2.2
Open-weight video diffusion from Alibaba.
Open Source 12–48 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Workstation GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
12 GB VRAM12 tools fit this tier
AI tools that run on 12 GB VRAM
Twelve gigabytes is the modern hobbyist sweet spot. Flux runs comfortably at FP8, 13B LLMs fit at Q5/Q6, and the smallest video diffusion models become viable. The RTX 3060 12 GB remains the best price-per-VRAM card ever made.
Typical GPUs in this tier
RTX 3060 12GBRTX 4070RTX 4070 SUPERRTX 5070
Capabilities
What you can run
- Flux.1 [dev] at FP8 — the practical Flux sweet spot
- LTX-Video and CogVideoX 2B for local video
- AnimateDiff motion modules on SD1.5
- 13B–14B LLMs at Q5/Q6 with full GPU offload
- SDXL LoRA training in Kohya / OneTrainer
What stays out of reach
- HunyuanVideo / Wan 2.2 14B (need 24 GB)
- Flux LoRA training (block-swap workarounds exist but slow)
- 70B LLMs without CPU offload
Recommended tools for 12 GB VRAM
Sorted by best fit for this tier — tools designed around your VRAM budget first, then by our power-user score.
Kohya_ss
The standard SDXL/Flux LoRA training UI.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
3D Gaussian Splatting
The INRIA original — train your own splats.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP32
Actually FreeNo SignupWatermark-Free
Hunyuan3D-2
Tencent's open 3D generator — multi-view, PBR, ready-to-use meshes.
Open Source 12–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeOpen SourceWatermark-FreeAPI
LTX-Video
Real-time-ish open video diffusion from Lightricks.
Open Source 12–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
OneTrainer
Modern alternative trainer for SD/SDXL/Flux.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large
Stability's MMDiT flagship at 8B params.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeWatermark-FreeHobbyist-FriendlyAPI
SUPIR
Diffusion-based photorealistic upscaler.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupWatermark-FreePlugin
CogVideoX 5B
Open-source text-to-video diffusion from THUDM.
Open Source 12–24 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
FluxGym
Dead-simple Flux LoRA training in a Gradio UI.
Open Source 12–20 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- Mid GPU
- Quant
- FP8
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free
Stable Video Diffusion
Image-to-video diffusion — 25 frames, 14 or 25 steps.
Open Source 12–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 12 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeOpen SourceWatermark-FreeHobbyist-Friendly
ComfyUI-AnimateDiff-Evolved
Animation motion modules for ComfyUI.
Open Source 10–16 GB VRAM
- Min VRAM
- 10 GB
- GPU class
- High-end GPU
- Quant
- FP16
Actually FreeNo SignupOpen SourceWatermark-Free