Command R 35B

35B

Cohere

Superseded · Prefer Qwen3.8 27B

This index would suggest Qwen3.8 27B instead today — longer context (128K → 256K tokens). The numbers below are still accurate; they are just for a model you probably should not start with. Compare the two

Cohere's RAG-optimised model. Excellent retrieval-augmented generation.

Pro GPU

131K

Max Context

2

Quant Variants

GGUF Q4_K_M

Best Quality

97.0%

Accuracy Retained

Quantization Variants

Per-quant VRAM, quality loss, and inference speed on RTX 4090

Measured = site benchmarks · Estimated = formula · Community = public reports

FormatLevelBPWVRAMPPL LossSpeedSourceActions
GGUFQ4_K_M4.8522.8 GB3.0%42 tok/sEstimated
CalcHF
GPTQINT4420.5 GB4.5%55 tok/sEstimated
CalcHF

Running Command R 35B locally

At Q4_K_M and 4K of context, Command R 35B needs about 22.9 GB — 20.2 GB of weights, 0.63 GB of KV cache and a 2.1 GB activation buffer. The smallest card in this index that clears that comfortably is the RTX 5090 at 32 GB, and 24 of the 63 cards here do. These are calculated figures, not measurements: the estimate stops counting a card as comfortable at 88% of its VRAM, which is roughly the room a desktop session needs.

What longer context costs

Going from 4K to 32K adds about 4.37 GB, taking the total to 27.7 GB. Weights do not move with context — only the KV cache does, and it grows linearly, so this is the number to watch when planning for long documents. The model's native window is 128K; holding all of it at Q4_K_M would need about 44 GB.

Which build to download

This index tracks 2 formats for it — GGUF, GPTQ — across 2 levels. Q4_K_M carries the lowest published perplexity loss at 3.0%. The fastest level measured here is GPTQ INT4 at 55 tok/s on an RTX 4090, batch 1. GGUF runs on llama.cpp and Ollama across NVIDIA, AMD and Apple silicon; AWQ and GPTQ target vLLM on CUDA and ROCm; EXL2 is ExLlamaV2 and CUDA only.

Common questions

How much VRAM does Command R 35B need?
About 22.9 GB at Q4_K_M with 4K of context and batch 1, rising to roughly 27.7 GB at 32K. That figure is weights plus KV cache plus a 10% activation buffer, calculated from the model's architecture rather than measured on a card.
Will Command R 35B run on a 32GB GPU?
Yes — at Q4_K_M and 4K context it needs about 22.9 GB, which leaves 9.1 GB spare on a RTX 5090. That is the smallest card in this index that clears it comfortably; 24 of 63 do.
Which quantization of Command R 35B should I use?
Q4_K_M has the lowest published quality loss (3.0%), and Q4_K_M is the level most people run. All 2 levels in the index are Q4_K_M, GPTQ INT4.

Where this model fits

Sized at Q4_K_M with a 4K context window, smallest card first. Comfortable means the estimate uses at most 88% of the memory.

Ships in
GGUFGPTQ
Compared here
GGUF vs GPTQ

This page's figures change when the model or the runtime does.Last updated 2026-09-21 RSS → /feed.xml