Intel Arc
A 27B for your 12 GB card. It lost one field.
Bonsai 2 27B fits a 12 GB card and decodes 1.8x faster than its Q4, then drops from 19 to 12 of 47 on a routing split, all of it on one field. Plus 23 used-GPU price corrections, the 3060 fair-price ladder, and eight Quick Hits.
Intel Arc B580 for Local LLMs: 12GB VRAM at $250, With Caveats
The Arc B580 gives you 12GB VRAM for $250, but Intel's AI software stack needs work. Real tok/s benchmarks, setup paths, and honest comparison with RTX 3060.
Intel Arc GPUs for Local AI: The Underdog Option That Actually Works
The Arc A770 16GB gives you 16GB of VRAM for ~$250 used. Software support through IPEX-LLM and llama.cpp SYCL is real but rough. Honest benchmarks, what works, and what doesn't.
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