Benchmarking 2-bit Quantization: Half the VRAM, Double the Speed with No Performance Loss
WigglyScrotum · reddit · 2026-08-07
A developer tested EschaLabs/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-Escha-W2 (2-bit quantization) on an AMD GPU, comparing it against a conventional 5-bit (APEX Q5) version.
Key Findings:
- Resources & Speed: The 2-bit version requires zero CPU offload, cuts VRAM usage to 12.19 GiB (saving over 11GB of total RAM), and doubles generation speed to 84.72 tokens/sec.
- Performance: Both versions achieved 100% pass rates on IFEval, GSM8K, and HumanEval+. In GPQA-Diamond, the 2-bit version actually outperformed the 5-bit version due to more concise reasoning.
While the sample size is small, the results suggest ultra-low quantization is highly practical for consumer hardware.
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