alt.freeweights.granite / granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
From: bartowski <huggingface.co/bartowski>Newsgroups: alt.freeweights.graniteSubject:

granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF

Date: 2026-11-15Commit: 7a0f633Signed: 2DC28CC7B26A283B ✓

Text generation model. Gguf weights, 117 GB in all. Published by bartowski under Apache-2.0.

granite117GBgranite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUFggufpermissive
FactsParamsnot statedSize117 GBFormatsggufTasktext generationLicenseApache-2.0From sourcepermissive
$ fw get bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
# manifest sha256 63cffc5f44df… · 117 GB · 25 files
$ fw verify ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
From sourceHosted (signed)bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUFLast check: 2026-11-15 04:52 UTC

Get help: custom fine-tune or private deploy. We review your setup before we quote.

Quantized of granite-3.1-8b-instruct.

Works with

Convert with

Overview

Size
117 GB
Weights
2.84 GB (smallest of 22 GGUF variants)
Parameters
not stated
Formats
gguf
Task
text generation
License
Apache-2.0 (permissive)
Files
25, each with a sha256
Publisher
bartowski
Added
2026-11-15
Section
alt.freeweights.granite
Lineage

Original release from the publisher.

Base model: ibm-granite/granite-3.1-8b-instruct

Where these bytes come from
Publisher at the pinned commit→You

Sources are tried in order. A file counts only when its size and sha256 match the manifest. Sources are checked when you ask for them, not on a timer.

Sources
BadgeHostLast checkResult
From sourcehuggingface.co2026-11-15 04:52 UTCpassed

Model card

From the publisher at commit 7a0f633. Shown as plain text with links; images open at the publisher.

Llamacpp imatrix Quantizations of granite-3.1-8b-instruct#

Using llama.cpp release b4381 for quantization.

Original model: https://huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-3.1-8b-instruct

All quants made using imatrix option with dataset from here

Run them in LM Studio

Prompt format#

<|start_of_role|>system<|end_of_role|>{system_prompt}<|end_of_text|> <|start_of_role|>user<|end_of_role|>{prompt}<|end_of_text|> <|start_of_role|>assistant<|end_of_role|>

What's new:#

Fix chat template

Download a file (not the whole branch) from below:#

FilenameQuant typeFile SizeSplitDescription
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-f16.gguff1616.34GBfalseFull F16 weights.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q8_0.ggufQ8_08.68GBfalseExtremely high quality, generally unneeded but max available quant.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q6_K_L.ggufQ6_K_L6.75GBfalseUses Q8_0 for embed and output weights. Very high quality, near perfect, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q6_K.ggufQ6_K6.71GBfalseVery high quality, near perfect, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q5_K_L.ggufQ5_K_L5.85GBfalseUses Q8_0 for embed and output weights. High quality, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q5_K_M.ggufQ5_K_M5.80GBfalseHigh quality, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q5_K_S.ggufQ5_K_S5.65GBfalseHigh quality, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_L.ggufQ4_K_L4.99GBfalseUses Q8_0 for embed and output weights. Good quality, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_M.ggufQ4_K_M4.94GBfalseGood quality, default size for most use cases, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_S.ggufQ4_K_S4.69GBfalseSlightly lower quality with more space savings, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_0.ggufQ4_04.67GBfalseLegacy format, offers online repacking for ARM and AVX CPU inference.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ4_NL.ggufIQ4_NL4.67GBfalseSimilar to IQ4_XS, but slightly larger. Offers online repacking for ARM CPU inference.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ4_XS.ggufIQ4_XS4.43GBfalseDecent quality, smaller than Q4_K_S with similar performance, recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_XL.ggufQ3_K_XL4.40GBfalseUses Q8_0 for embed and output weights. Lower quality but usable, good for low RAM availability.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_L.ggufQ3_K_L4.35GBfalseLower quality but usable, good for low RAM availability.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_M.ggufQ3_K_M4.00GBfalseLow quality.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ3_M.ggufIQ3_M3.74GBfalseMedium-low quality, new method with decent performance comparable to Q3_K_M.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_S.ggufQ3_K_S3.59GBfalseLow quality, not recommended.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ3_XS.ggufIQ3_XS3.43GBfalseLower quality, new method with decent performance, slightly better than Q3_K_S.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q2_K_L.ggufQ2_K_L3.15GBfalseUses Q8_0 for embed and output weights. Very low quality but surprisingly usable.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q2_K.ggufQ2_K3.10GBfalseVery low quality but surprisingly usable.
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ2_M.ggufIQ2_M2.84GBfalseRelatively low quality, uses SOTA techniques to be surprisingly usable.

Embed/output weights#

Some of these quants (Q3_K_XL, Q4_K_L etc) are the standard quantization method with the embeddings and output weights quantized to Q8_0 instead of what they would normally default to.

Downloading using huggingface-cli#

Click to view download instructions

First, make sure you have hugginface-cli installed:

pip install -U "huggingface_hub[cli]"

Then, you can target the specific file you want:

huggingface-cli download bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF --include "granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf" --local-dir ./

If the model is bigger than 50GB, it will have been split into multiple files. In order to download them all to a local folder, run:

huggingface-cli download bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF --include "granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q8_0/*" --local-dir ./

You can either specify a new local-dir (granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q8_0) or download them all in place (./)

ARM/AVX information#

Previously, you would download Q4_0_4_4/4_8/8_8, and these would have their weights interleaved in memory in order to improve performance on ARM and AVX machines by loading up more data in one pass.

Now, however, there is something called "online repacking" for weights. details in this PR. If you use Q4_0 and your hardware would benefit from repacking weights, it will do it automatically on the fly.

As of llama.cpp build b4282 you will not be able to run the Q4_0_X_X files and will instead need to use Q4_0.

Additionally, if you want to get slightly better quality for , you can use IQ4_NL thanks to this PR which will also repack the weights for ARM, though only the 4_4 for now. The loading time may be slower but it will result in an overall speed incrase.

Click to view Q4_0_X_X information (deprecated

I'm keeping this section to show the potential theoretical uplift in performance from using the Q4_0 with online repacking.

Click to view benchmarks on an AVX2 system (EPYC7702)

modelsizeparamsbackendthreadstestt/s% (vs Q4_0)
qwen2 3B Q4_01.70 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp512204.03 ± 1.03100%
qwen2 3B Q4_01.70 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp1024282.92 ± 0.19100%
qwen2 3B Q4_01.70 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp2048259.49 ± 0.44100%
qwen2 3B Q4_01.70 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg12839.12 ± 0.27100%
qwen2 3B Q4_01.70 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg25639.31 ± 0.69100%
qwen2 3B Q4_01.70 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg51240.52 ± 0.03100%
qwen2 3B Q4_K_M1.79 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp512301.02 ± 1.74147%
qwen2 3B Q4_K_M1.79 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp1024287.23 ± 0.20101%
qwen2 3B Q4_K_M1.79 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp2048262.77 ± 1.81101%
qwen2 3B Q4_K_M1.79 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg12818.80 ± 0.9948%
qwen2 3B Q4_K_M1.79 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg25624.46 ± 3.0483%
qwen2 3B Q4_K_M1.79 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg51236.32 ± 3.5990%
qwen2 3B Q4_0_8_81.69 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp512271.71 ± 3.53133%
qwen2 3B Q4_0_8_81.69 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp1024279.86 ± 45.63100%
qwen2 3B Q4_0_8_81.69 GiB3.09 BCPU64pp2048320.77 ± 5.00124%
qwen2 3B Q4_0_8_81.69 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg12843.51 ± 0.05111%
qwen2 3B Q4_0_8_81.69 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg25643.35 ± 0.09110%
qwen2 3B Q4_0_8_81.69 GiB3.09 BCPU64tg51242.60 ± 0.31105%

Q4_0_8_8 offers a nice bump to prompt processing and a small bump to text generation

Which file should I choose?#

Click here for details

A great write up with charts showing various performances is provided by Artefact2 here

The first thing to figure out is how big a model you can run. To do this, you'll need to figure out how much RAM and/or VRAM you have.

If you want your model running as FAST as possible, you'll want to fit the whole thing on your GPU's VRAM. Aim for a quant with a file size 1-2GB smaller than your GPU's total VRAM.

If you want the absolute maximum quality, add both your system RAM and your GPU's VRAM together, then similarly grab a quant with a file size 1-2GB Smaller than that total.

Next, you'll need to decide if you want to use an 'I-quant' or a 'K-quant'.

If you don't want to think too much, grab one of the K-quants. These are in format 'QX_K_X', like Q5_K_M.

If you want to get more into the weeds, you can check out this extremely useful feature chart:

llama.cpp feature matrix

But basically, if you're aiming for below Q4, and you're running cuBLAS (Nvidia) or rocBLAS (AMD), you should look towards the I-quants. These are in format IQX_X, like IQ3_M. These are newer and offer better performance for their size.

These I-quants can also be used on CPU and Apple Metal, but will be slower than their K-quant equivalent, so speed vs performance is a tradeoff you'll have to decide.

The I-quants are not compatible with Vulcan, which is also AMD, so if you have an AMD card double check if you're using the rocBLAS build or the Vulcan build. At the time of writing this, LM Studio has a preview with ROCm support, and other inference engines have specific builds for ROCm.

Credits#

Thank you kalomaze and Dampf for assistance in creating the imatrix calibration dataset.

Thank you ZeroWw for the inspiration to experiment with embed/output.

Want to support my work? Visit my ko-fi page here: https://ko-fi.com/bartowski

Files

25 files · 117 GBWeights 2.84 GB (smallest of 22 GGUF variants). Sizes and sha256 from the signed manifest.
Show all 25 files with their sha256
FileSizesha256
.gitattributes3.16 KBb1308fa943cba2b531219bea0c75fd3fe36ce6481b15d449e6bf7445d66b624f
README.md13.5 KB4e84b550666056ddccb7e6185ad183d6d32fdd2f859916f4ddedd0aad1348cde
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ2_M.gguf2.84 GBa1014d8168b91bb2f5a9019efb594399940a07a690d9e909adcf0fbc54b2718a
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ3_M.gguf3.74 GB5a3e08288120aa2e3ccb95778c79e10e2af69010a71124af23ae5623dc233c7c
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ3_XS.gguf3.43 GBc2207447d17d802cfe8b6e7cf30595e3f9ef100231454869c42416b86851aaa2
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ4_NL.gguf4.67 GBa370a91e3e9b2663f88afcfd80edaa483ef4a8f18355228039e40e4aa82fc8c9
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ4_XS.gguf4.43 GB4c5723689ffb253dc6fffacb6cf43bc0eb6e227b32f4ae1c41dc9910902d02ab
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q2_K.gguf3.10 GB95d08153fd5f2faf133034b49d0b8add9492dbb69905def43c3f1fee17d8ccb5
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q2_K_L.gguf3.15 GB84d0c2afe9d490594b194f17442a9e524fd8b77d886625a8758b42aafe97197c
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_L.gguf4.35 GBe5290d172e3cb0cc8fdbaf8f5af8618c97c58d436f728d1bfbf41056b1a0d948
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_M.gguf4.00 GB96008ca29e89c8728d4b043df8d93dc3f4052881bfee0d526e8139f4bec4c844
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_S.gguf3.59 GBfc6d6c2faa9c97dc014b5254886cff11bf8a71708ce644ff1a0236e92da87455
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q3_K_XL.gguf4.40 GBddb06590802d932d5cf44dd575e867bb46861cd995200478565447c068395f37
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_0.gguf4.67 GB108f6e3d1b5c69c9953fd43698f92a05073a4d973df58c8ad0384eee9cea313e
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_L.gguf4.99 GBb7744fae3a727987ea73af3ef04d9d8e3da6a481646d2f0e4c03fd4fe462e3fd
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf4.94 GBb72cfca8e30f23af77f922ce18d6fe1a5d4925907dddf7249c0cabc2739d48c8
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q4_K_S.gguf4.69 GBce9230cb30b23dacb5c7a702073f45ca4d0cf994d121f53cea39db270a9deb0b
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q5_K_L.gguf5.85 GBedb476c0bce86313b60cb7aeb152d7f86022a9c8f5afc69d31fd96c362138409
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q5_K_M.gguf5.80 GBb36cc4b22bc1081aad410e21651ffbe031c65a4d93e905ab3eb1d531ccfa124e
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q5_K_S.gguf5.65 GB2890b01d3ba1f03286579f36f25bf0b2a5739632daa6b6fd7db4fae76ee07683
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q6_K.gguf6.71 GB50ba9935424467923b47033c4bd9aaf27cab3ff2808a7bfa76649a23758b7a25
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q6_K_L.gguf6.75 GB2343db43ed434fb0be4e10775efba5524341858f7f234aca4167f4d721ea4064
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-Q8_0.gguf8.68 GB70d56efa48c46d941790f17fa0486528e9aab8b82b4e453d2e09e932570a092a
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-f16.gguf16.3 GB9b434934c5ae662285d7bf96e345d3809d5b7eba34046e508b7dc43d5d8036bd
granite-3.1-8b-instruct.imatrix5.99 MBfaa56266b45dc5b61f4ddd209632e55fdc54b49048383bec67d2d11bb5b43789
VersionsEach time the pinned upstream commit or file list changed in this repo. Newest first.
Upstream commitDateContents
7a0f633d54 pinned now2026-11-15 04:52 UTC25 files · 117 GB

Use it

$ fw get bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
# manifest sha256 63cffc5f44df… · 117 GB · 25 files
$ fw verify ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
fw.pyChecks the signature and every sha256, tries each source in order, resumes.
$ python3 fw.py get https://freeweights.allternit.com/manifests/bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json --dir ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF $ python3 fw.py verify ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF ./bartowski__granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json
hfThe Hugging Face CLI with one setting. Same repo id.
$ HF_ENDPOINT=https://freeweights.allternit.com hf download bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF --revision 7a0f633d54069de889707a76353bc28b70361d9f --local-dir ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
llama.cppDownload one GGUF variant (granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ2_M, 2.84 GB), then serve it.
$ HF_ENDPOINT=https://freeweights.allternit.com hf download bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF --include "granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ2_M*" --local-dir ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF $ llama-server -m ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ2_M.gguf
OllamaMake an Ollama model from the downloaded file.
$ printf 'FROM ./granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-IQ2_M.gguf\n' > Modelfile $ ollama create granite-3.1-8b-instruct-gguf -f Modelfile

License

Name
Apache License 2.0
Id
Apache-2.0
Class
Permissive
Redistribution
yes
Listing
Hosted (signed)
Decided
License as declared by the publisher. No person read it. 2026-11-15
Text in
README.md
Text sha256
4e84b550666056ddccb7e6185ad183d6d32fdd2f859916f4ddedd0aad1348cde
Terms gate
No extra terms beyond the license.

Read the license text

Licenses are checked against the license table. A custom license passes only after a person reads it.

Provenance

From: bartowski <huggingface.co/bartowski>Newsgroups: alt.freeweights.graniteSubject: granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUFDate: 2026-11-15Commit: 7a0f633Signed: 2DC28CC7B26A283B ✓
Upstream
bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
Pinned commit
7a0f633d54069de889707a76353bc28b70361d9f
Manifest
granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json · .minisig
Manifest sha256
63cffc5f44dfaadb8956f9702203feddb504e306c429fc6aa067c3313352a622
Signature
minisign, Ed25519, key 2DC28CC7B26A283B
Created
2026-11-15 04:52 UTC
Generator
freeweights-manifest/0.1.0
Takedowns
None.

How to verify

$ curl -O https://freeweights.allternit.com/manifests/bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json $ curl -O https://freeweights.allternit.com/manifests/bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json.minisig $ minisign -Vm granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json -P RWQ7KGqyx4zCLXtUFOqvfv8L3g+8fpKJ1FsuxPyOYMF+4KufbUxKq1Oq $ shasum -a 256 <file> # compare with the Files tab

A manifest whose signature fails must be rejected. A file whose size or sha256 does not match must be discarded. Verify a download

Model tree

Parent

ibm-granite/granite-3.1-8b-instruct · this model is a quantization of it

No model in the catalog names this one as its parent.

Get it
Download
$ HF_ENDPOINT=https://freeweights.allternit.com hf download bartowski/granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF
Open in Freeweights Studio

Pull, verify and run it in the Allternit app on Desktop, web or phone.

Signed manifest
minisign, key 2DC28CC7B26A283B. granite-3.1-8b-instruct-GGUF.json. Provenance. Takedown history: none.
From: ibm-granite <huggingface.co/ibm-granite>Subject: GneissWeb.7B_ablation_model_on_350B_FineWeb.Edu.seed1
From: ibm-granite <huggingface.co/ibm-granite>Subject: GneissWeb.7B_ablation_model_on_350B_FineWeb.Edu.seed2
From: ibm-granite <huggingface.co/ibm-granite>Subject: GneissWeb.7B_ablation_model_on_350B_FineWeb.Edu.seed3
From: ibm-granite <huggingface.co/ibm-granite>Subject: GneissWeb.7B_ablation_model_on_350B_FineWeb.seed1
From: ibm-granite <huggingface.co/ibm-granite>Subject: GneissWeb.7B_ablation_model_on_350B_FineWeb.seed2
From: ibm-granite <huggingface.co/ibm-granite>Subject: GneissWeb.7B_ablation_model_on_350B_FineWeb.seed3