license: apache-2.0
base_model:

• Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
  tags:
• Qwen3.8-27B
• abliterated
• Uncensored
• heretic
• TurboQuant
• gguf
• IQ4_XXS
  pipeline_tag: image-text-to-text

Qwen3.8-27B-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED-MTP-IQ4-GGUF-16GB

** ♥♥♥♥ This model is specially prepared for your graphics card with 16GB VRAM. **

This model is the IQ4_XS GGUF quantization of AEON-7/Qwen3.8-27B-AEON-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED-BF16 (an uncensored / abliterated build of Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B), produced via mradermacher's i1 GGUF pipeline (mradermacher/Qwen3.8-27B-heretic-ara-i1-GGUF). The 16G variant is tuned to fit comfortably on a 16GB VRAM GPU (e.g. RTX 4060 Ti 16GB) when run with a TurboQuant KV cache.

Innovation

This model refers to the fully optimized Qwen3.8-27B-i1-IQ4_XS, which has restored the attn_qkv layer to pure IQ4_XS. Furthermore, we introduce a novel hybrid precision quantization strategy: the FFN layer uses IQ3_S, which achieves significantly smaller file sizes while maintaining core inference capabilities through support from TurboQuant KV caching. Additionally, we use AEON-7's AEON-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED abliterated version of the base model for quantization, making it convenient for users to conduct in-depth research.

Motivation

The original llama.cpp quantization heuristics upgrade attn_qkv layers to q5_K under certain conditions (e.g., n_gqa >= 4), causing noticeable file bloat. cHunter789's fix restores attn_qkv to pure IQ4_XS, saving ~375 MiB.

Taking this further: FFN layers (ffn_down, ffn_up, ffn_gate) account for ~2/3 of total model parameters, yet they have higher redundancy than attention layers. Downgrading them from IQ4_XS to IQ3_S is a natural next step — it yields substantial size reduction with minimal quality impact, especially when attention layers (which dominate inference quality) remain at IQ4_XS.

Methodology

1. Base model: AEON-7/Qwen3.8-27B-AEON-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED-BF16 — an uncensored / abliterated build of Qwen3.8-27B, optimized for inference
2. Quantization tool: llama.cpp with TurboQuant support, built from TheTom/llama-cpp-turboquant (release tqp-v0.3.0)
3. Quantization types:
   • attn_qkv, attn_k, attn_v, attn_output, output: IQ4_XS
   • ffn_down, ffn_up, ffn_gate: IQ3_S
   • Other layers: default IQ4_XS
4. Importance matrix (imatrix): sourced from mradermacher's Qwen3.8-27B-heretic-ara-i1-GGUF

Quantization Commands

llama-quantize.exe ^
  --imatrix Qwen3.8-27B-heretic-ara.imatrix.gguf ^
  Qwen3.8-27B-heretic-ara-BF16.gguf ^
  Qwen3.8-27B-heretic-IQ4_XXS.gguf ^
  IQ4_XS 8 ^
  --tensor-type "blk.*.ffn_down" iq3_s ^
  --tensor-type "blk.*.ffn_up" iq3_s ^
  --tensor-type "blk.*.ffn_gate" iq3_s

Note on TurboQuant: This model is recommended to be used with llama.cpp (https://github.com/TheTom/llama-cpp-turboquant) that supports TurboQuant KV caching (release tqp-v0.3.0). TurboQuant allows the KV cache to use a separate, more compact quantization format (turbo4 / turbo3), dramatically reducing memory usage even when the model weights themselves remain at IQ4_XS. Of course, it is also possible to use vllm or other inference frameworks that support TurboQuant technology, but the author used llama.cpp for the test.

Memory Performance (with TurboQuant KV Cache)

Key Takeaways

• IQ4_XXS reaches 100K-110K context before VRAM saturation
• IQ4_XXS + MTP (speculative decoding via draft-mtp): ~80K context, higher throughput thanks to multi-token prediction

Inference Speed

Tested on NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti 16GB:

Vision Support (Optional)

This model supports vision input when paired with the Vision Modality Projector (mmproj-BF16.gguf). If you load the vision module, the available context window will be reduced by approximately 20K to accommodate the vision encoder's memory footprint.

Caveats

• TurboQuant is mandatory: This model relies on TurboQuant KV cache for the listed memory figures. Standard llama.cpp builds without TurboQuant will consume significantly more VRAM.
• FFN layers at IQ3_S: While the quality impact is expected to be minimal for most tasks, some degradation may be observable in tasks that heavily depend on FFN-related capabilities (e.g., certain factual recall scenarios). The attention layers remain at IQ4_XS to preserve core inference quality.
• Verification pending: The perplexity / VRAM / speed figures below are carried over from the same 27B-class IQ4_XS / IQ4_XS-FFN-IQ3_S methodology and should be re-validated specifically for Qwen3.8.

How to Use

You need a TurboQuant-enabled llama.cpp build from TheTom/llama-cpp-turboquant (release tqp-v0.3.0).

Note: This model is quantized from an abliterated / uncensored (AEON-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED) base model (AEON-7/Qwen3.8-27B-AEON-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED-BF16). The base model removes content restrictions for research and development purposes.

Recommended run command (16GB VRAM, ~100K context):

set TURBO_AUTO_ASYMMETRIC=0

llama-turboquant-3.0\llama-server.exe  -m Qwen3.8-27B-uncensored-abliterated-heretic-IQ4-GGUF-16G.gguf -b 2048 -ub 2048 -c 102400 -ngl 999 --flash-attn on  -ctk turbo4 -ctv turbo4 --chat-template-file chat_template.jinja --host 0.0.0.0 --port 1234

Note: You must first use set TURBO-AUTO_SYMETRIC=0, otherwise KV will automatically increase to Q8_0.

Note: For visual support, please refer to the loading command in Qwen3.6 27B, but the context needs to be reduced by 20K.

Run command with MTP (speculative decoding, ~80K context):

llama-turboquant-3.0\llama-server.exe  -m Qwen3.8-27B-uncensored-abliterated-heretic-IQ4-GGUF-16G.gguf -b 2048 -ub 2048 --parallel 1 --spec-type draft-mtp --spec-draft-n-max 2 -c 81920 -ngl 999 --flash-attn on  -ctk turbo4 -ctv turbo4 --chat-template-file chat_template.jinja --host 0.0.0.0 --port 1234

About MTP: Enabling --spec-type draft-mtp --spec-draft-n-max 2 turns on multi-token prediction (speculative decoding) for higher throughput. Because the draft model shares part of the KV cache budget, the usable context window is reduced to ~80K (-c 81920) on a 16GB GPU.

Acknowledgments

• AEON-7 — for the Qwen3.8-27B-AEON-ULTIMATE-UNCENSORED-BF16 uncensored / abliterated base model
• llama-cpp-turboquant — provides release tqp-v0.3.0, supports Qwen3.8, the TurboQuant KV cache implementation