Pleias 3B Preview
By PleIAs · France
Updated 2026-07-13
Overview
A French 3B from PleIAs trained 100% on Common Corpus open data, designed for EU AI Act compliance by construction. Fully traceable training data, Apache 2.0.
When to pick this model
- You need EU AI Act compliance with auditable training data
- You're shipping into regulated industries that require provenance
- You want a small French-capable model under Apache 2.0
- You're building tooling where data lineage matters more than raw benchmarks
VRAM requirements by quantization
| Quantization | VRAM required |
|---|---|
| Q4_K_M (recommended) | 2 GB |
| Q5_K_M | 2.5 GB |
| Q8_0 | 3.5 GB |
| FP16 (no quantization) | 6 GB |
VRAM figures include model weights plus a typical 8k KV cache and ~600 MB runtime overhead (Ollama / llama.cpp baseline). Add headroom for higher context lengths.
In practice, Pleias 3B Preview fits an 8 GB consumer card at Q4_K_M (2 GB). Stepping up to Q8_0 nearly doubles the footprint to 3.5 GB, and unquantized FP16 weights take 6 GB — plan your GPU around the Q4 or Q5 figure unless you specifically need the higher fidelity.
Without a GPU, Pleias 3B Preview needs roughly 5 GB of system RAM to run on CPU via llama.cpp or Ollama — workable for background jobs, but far slower than GPU inference. Throughput estimates from our compatibility engine: around 25 tokens/sec on entry-level GPUs, on the order of 70 tokens/sec on a mid-range card, and up to 160 tokens/sec on high-end hardware — assuming the chosen quantization fully fits in VRAM.
What hardware do you need
The table below matches Pleias 3B Preview to common GPU memory tiers, using the highest-fidelity quantization that fully fits each card class. Spilling layers to system RAM works but costs most of the speed, so size your card to the quantization you actually want to run.
| GPU memory | Example cards | Best fit for Pleias 3B Preview |
|---|---|---|
| 8 GB | RTX 5070 Laptop, RTX 5060, RTX 5060 Ti 8GB | FP16 (6 GB used) |
| 12 GB | RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti Laptop, RTX 4080 Laptop | FP16 (6 GB used) |
| 16 GB | RTX 5080, RTX 4080 Super, Radeon RX 9070 XT | FP16 (6 GB used) |
| 24 GB | RTX 4090, Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RTX 5090 Laptop | FP16 (6 GB used) |
| 32 GB | RTX 5090 | FP16 (6 GB used) |
Which GPU should you buy to run Pleias 3B Preview?
To run Pleias 3B Preview locally at Q4, you need ~2 GB of VRAM. The best value for this is a RTX 5060 (8 GB VRAM).
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Strengths
- EU AI Act compliant by design
- 100% traceable training data (Common Corpus)
- Apache 2.0
- Compact 3B footprint
Limitations
- Modest benchmark scores vs general-purpose 3B peers
- Context window of only ~2K
- Narrower capabilities than mainstream open models
Typical workloads
In our catalog grid, Pleias 3B Preview is filed under AI Act Compliance, Open Data — the use cases where its size/quality trade-off makes the most sense. Its tags translate to concrete workloads: multilingual workloads; French-language output where quality matters.
Note the 2k-token context window — fine for short interactions, limiting for long documents or big retrieval contexts. The Apache 2.0 license is permissive, so shipping it inside a commercial product raises no special legal questions.
Architecture & training
Architecture: Dense Llama/GPT-NeoX-style · trained from scratch
Training: ~1.08T tokens on Common Corpus (100% open-licensed data).
The right pick when training-data provenance and EU compliance matter more than benchmark numbers.
Quick start
# HuggingFace : PleIAs/Pleias-3b-PreviewOr use the open-source MCP server to query this model from Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.
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Frequently asked questions
How much VRAM does Pleias 3B Preview need?
At the recommended Q4_K_M quantization, Pleias 3B Preview needs about 2 GB of VRAM. Q8_0 takes 3.5 GB, and unquantized FP16 weights take 6 GB.
Can Pleias 3B Preview run without a GPU?
Yes — with roughly 5 GB of system RAM it runs CPU-only through llama.cpp or Ollama. Expect a fraction of GPU speed, which is fine for background or batch jobs but slow for interactive chat.
What context window does Pleias 3B Preview support?
Pleias 3B Preview supports a 2k-token context window (2,048 tokens).
Can I use Pleias 3B Preview commercially?
Yes. Pleias 3B Preview is released under Apache 2.0, a permissive open-source license that allows commercial use, modification and redistribution.
How fast is Pleias 3B Preview on consumer hardware?
Our compatibility engine estimates on the order of 70 tokens/sec on a mid-range GPU and up to 160 tokens/sec on high-end cards, assuming the quantization fully fits in VRAM.
Which quantization of Pleias 3B Preview should I download first?
Start with Q4_K_M (2 GB) — the standard size/quality sweet spot. Step up to Q5_K_M or Q8_0 only if you have VRAM headroom. It already fits an 8 GB card at FP16.