Can this workstation handle large LLMs? (256GB RAM + RTX 3060 12GB)

I recently got a Dell Precision T5820 workstation with 256GB DDR4 ECC RAM 2666Mhz and for now I’ll be using an RTX 3060 12GB GPU, 4TB Nvme Kingston. My main use-case is running LLMs locally (DeepSeek, Llama 3, etc.) for: • Writing long-form SEO articles (7k+ words) • Code generation and debugging • Research and data analysis • Running models with very long context (so they can “remember” a lot)

I understand the 3060 is a limiting factor, but I’ve seen that with quantization + enough RAM it’s possible to run models like DeepSeek 671B, albeit slowly.

My questions: 1. What’s the realistic ceiling for this setup? 2. Will upgrading to something like a 3090, 4090, or AMD 7900 make a big difference for LLM inference?

Any input from people who have tried similar configs would be awesome!

Thanks!