I have found that the "mostly didn't lose anything" Q8 large models that I want to run are all too large to run on the "only $3995!" 128GB max RAM systems that some people are buying, and definitely won't fit with any usable amount of context. Things like Qwen 3.5 122B Q8 or deepseek v4 flash Q8, or Laguna S 2.1 Q8 need 170-190GB of RAM including full context, which fits on a 256GB RAM dual socket workstation or rackmount server (sans GPU).
Copy and paste below from my notes and reported memory consumption with latest llama-server, assuming use of "--no-mmap" to load the entire thing into RAM at the time that llama-server launches.
DeepSeek-V4-Flash-UD-Q4_K_XL via unsloth
145GB on disk GGUF
0.03.323.204 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 178175 MiB of host memory
DeepSeek-V4-Flash-UD-Q8_K_XL via unsloth
151GB on disk GGUF
0.02.215.885 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 184636 MiB of host memory
Laguna-S-2.1-UD-Q8_K_X via unsloth
120GB on disk
0.01.616.119 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 172860 MiB of host memory
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-UD-Q8_K_XL via unsloth
160GB on disk GGUF
165GB RAM use on launch, fresh context
0.04.976.905 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 170038 MiB of host memory
Copy and paste below from my notes and reported memory consumption with latest llama-server, assuming use of "--no-mmap" to load the entire thing into RAM at the time that llama-server launches.
DeepSeek-V4-Flash-UD-Q4_K_XL via unsloth 145GB on disk GGUF 0.03.323.204 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 178175 MiB of host memory
DeepSeek-V4-Flash-UD-Q8_K_XL via unsloth 151GB on disk GGUF 0.02.215.885 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 184636 MiB of host memory
Laguna-S-2.1-UD-Q8_K_X via unsloth 120GB on disk 0.01.616.119 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 172860 MiB of host memory
Qwen3.5-122B-A10B-UD-Q8_K_XL via unsloth 160GB on disk GGUF 165GB RAM use on launch, fresh context 0.04.976.905 I common_params_fit_impl: projected to use 170038 MiB of host memory