Best local AI models for NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti Laptop

2 GB GDDR5. At a 4k context, 56 of the 233 models in our catalog with verified parameter counts fit fully, up to Allegro at 2.8B parameters.

Check your own machine against every model →

The largest models that fit fully

The 30 largest of the 56 models that fit; every smaller model in the catalog fits too. Best quant means the highest quality compression whose weights and 4k context both sit inside the memory.

ModelParametersBest quant that fitsMemory used at 4k
Allegro2.8BQ4_K_M2 GB
Open-Sora Plan2.7BQ4_K_M2 GB
LFM2 1.2B / 2.6B2.6BQ4_K_M1.9 GB
Playground v2.52.6BQ4_K_M1.9 GB
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium2.5BQ4_K_M1.8 GB
Canary 1B / Qwen-2.5B2.5BQ4_K_M1.8 GB
SeamlessM4T v22.3BQ5_K_M2 GB
Parler-TTS2.2BQ5_K_M1.9 GB
Kimi K3 DSpark2.2BQ5_K_M2 GB
SmolVLM 256M / 500M / 2B2BQ6_K2 GB
Stable Diffusion 3 Medium2BQ6_K2 GB
Pyramid Flow2BQ6_K2 GB
Wav2Vec2 / XLS-R2BQ6_K2 GB
Moondream 21.9BQ6_K1.9 GB
Qwen3 1.7B1.7BQ6_K1.7 GB
SmolLM2 135M / 360M / 1.7B1.7BQ6_K1.7 GB
StableLM 2 1.6B1.6BQ8_02 GB
Sana 0.6B / 1.6B1.6BQ8_02 GB
Zonos 0.11.6BQ8_02 GB
Dia 1.6B1.6BQ8_02 GB
Whisper Large v31.55BQ8_02 GB
ControlNet / T2I-Adapter / IP-Adapter1.5BQ8_01.9 GB
Hunyuan-DiT1.5BQ8_01.9 GB
Stable Video Diffusion1.5BQ8_01.9 GB
Whisper Large v2 / turbo1.5BQ8_01.9 GB
AudioGen1.5BQ8_01.9 GB
AudioLDM 21.5BQ8_01.9 GB
Tango 21.4BQ8_01.8 GB
TinyLlama 1.1B1.1BQ8_01.4 GB
SantaCoder 1.1B1.1BQ8_01.4 GB

Close, but only with CPU offload

These need more than the card holds at their smallest practical quant, so part of the model runs from system memory (figures assume 32 GB of it). They work, several times slower.

ModelParametersMemory at Q4_K_MSystem RAM at 4k
SmolLM3 3B3B2.2 GB needed4.2 GB
Replit Code v1.5 3B3B2.2 GB needed4.2 GB
Kandinsky 3.13B2.2 GB needed4.2 GB
Voxtral Mini / Small3B2.2 GB needed4.2 GB
Orpheus TTS3B2.2 GB needed4.2 GB
Higgs Audio v23B2.2 GB needed4.2 GB
MusicGen small/medium/large3.3B2.4 GB needed4.4 GB
Stable Diffusion XL3.417B4.1 GB needed6.1 GB
SDXL Turbo3.5B2.6 GB needed4.6 GB
SDXL Lightning3.5B2.6 GB needed4.6 GB

How to read this

The NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti Laptop graphics card features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. This dedicated video memory is the main limit for running local artificial intelligence models. To run a model entirely on your graphics hardware, the model files and active memory must fit inside this 2 GB limit. If a model requires more memory than your card has, the system will slow down or fail to run the model.

The quantization column shows the compression level used to shrink these models. Quantization reduces the precision of model weights to save space. A Q4_K_M quant represents a four bit compression that keeps good accuracy while using much less memory. Higher quants like Q6_K or Q8_0 offer better quality but require more space. For example, the Allegro 2.8B model fits in 2 GB of memory using a Q4_K_M quant. The TinyLlama 1.1B model fits in 1.4 GB of memory using a Q8_0 quant.

You can run larger models by offloading parts of the workload to your system RAM. This setup assumes your laptop has 32 GB of system RAM. Offloading allows you to run models like the 3B SmolLM3 or the 3.5B SDXL Turbo. The SDXL Turbo model needs 2.6 GB of video memory at Q4_K_M and 4.6 GB of system RAM. Offloading comes with a speed cost. Moving data between your system RAM and your graphics card is much slower than running everything on the GDDR5 memory.

Context window size also affects your memory usage. Running a model with a standard four thousand token context window requires extra memory. This extra memory is used to store the active conversation history. If you use the maximum context window, you may need to choose smaller models or lower quantization levels to avoid running out of your 2 GB video memory.

Many small models perform well on this hardware. The Qwen3 1.7B model fits in 1.7 GB of memory using a Q6_K quant. The Whisper Large v3 model fits in 2 GB of memory using a Q8_0 quant. These options let you run text generation, speech recognition, and image creation locally on your laptop.