Llama 3.1 8B VRAM requirements
Llama 3.1 8B has 8.0B parameters. With an 8K-token context and one request it needs about 6.58 GB of GPU memory at Q4_K_M, 9.83 GB at FP8 and 18.1 GB at FP16/BF16. The published weights take 15.0 GB (BF16). On one 24 GB RTX 3090 / 4090 it runs at Q4_K_M with its full 128K-token context.
Open Llama 3.1 8B in the calculator
VRAM by quantization
Weights plus the KV cache for 8,192 tokens in FP16 and the runtime overhead (0.5 GB plus 10%). Each row opens the calculator with that setting. What the GGUF names mean.
| Precision | Weights | Total | Smallest setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| As published (BF16) | 15.0 GB | 18.1 GB | RTX 3090 / 4090 |
| FP16 / BF16 | 15.0 GB | 18.1 GB | RTX 3090 / 4090 |
| FP8 / INT8 | 7.48 GB | 9.83 GB | RTX 3060 |
| INT4 (AWQ / GPTQ) | 3.97 GB | 5.97 GB | RTX 3060 |
| GGUF Q8_0 | 7.95 GB | 10.3 GB | RTX 3060 |
| GGUF Q6_K | 6.13 GB | 8.35 GB | RTX 3060 |
| GGUF Q5_K_M | 5.30 GB | 7.43 GB | RTX 3060 |
| GGUF Q4_K_M | 4.52 GB | 6.58 GB | RTX 3060 |
| GGUF Q3_K_M | 3.66 GB | 5.62 GB | RTX 3060 |
| GGUF Q2_K | 3.13 GB | 5.04 GB | RTX 3060 |
KV cache at long context
All 32 layers use full attention. Each extra token of context adds 128 KB of FP16 cache per request. How the KV cache works.
| Context | KV cache, FP16 | KV cache, FP8 | Total at Q4_K_M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4K tokens | 512 MB | 256 MB | 6.03 GB |
| 32K tokens | 4.00 GB | 2.00 GB | 9.88 GB |
| 128K tokens | 16.0 GB | 8.00 GB | 23.1 GB |
Which GPUs can run Llama 3.1 8B
With 8,192 tokens of context. Several GPUs means one tensor-parallel group of 2, 4 or 8 cards.
| GPU | Memory | Q4_K_M | FP8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 | 12 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | 16 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| RTX 3090 / 4090 | 24 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| RTX 5090 | 32 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| A100 40GB | 40 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| Mac, 64 GB unified memory about 75% of it is usable by the GPU by default | 48 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| L40S / RTX 6000 Ada | 48 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| A100 / H100 80GB | 80 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| Mac, 128 GB unified memory about 75% of it is usable by the GPU by default | 96 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| H200 | 141 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
| B200 | 180 GB | Fits on one | Fits on one |
How fast Llama 3.1 8B writes
Tokens per second for one request with 8,192 tokens of context, estimated from memory bandwidth. A dash means it does not fit on one card. Try other settings in the speed calculator.
| Hardware | Bandwidth | Q4_K_M | FP8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 12GB | 360 GB/s | 32–45 | 21–29 |
| RTX 4090 | 1,008 GB/s | 82–120 | 56–80 |
| RTX 5090 | 1,792 GB/s | 133–204 | 93–137 |
| M4 Max Mac (128 GB) | 546 GB/s | 47–67 | 31–44 |
| M3 Ultra Mac Studio (512 GB) | 819 GB/s | 68–98 | 46–65 |
| H100 SXM | 3,350 GB/s | 212–350 | 155–243 |
| H200 | 4,800 GB/s | 267–466 | 202–330 |
Longest context on one GPU
How many tokens of context fit on a single card with one request and an FP16 KV cache. "Full" means the model's whole context window fits.
| GPU | Memory | Q4_K_M | Q8_0 | FP8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 | 12 GB | 47K | 19K | 23K |
| RTX 4060 Ti 16GB | 16 GB | 76K | 49K | 52K |
| RTX 3090 / 4090 | 24 GB | 128K (full) | 107K | 110K |
| RTX 5090 | 32 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| A100 40GB | 40 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| Mac, 64 GB unified memory | 48 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| L40S / RTX 6000 Ada | 48 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| A100 / H100 80GB | 80 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| Mac, 128 GB unified memory | 96 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| H200 | 141 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
| B200 | 180 GB | 128K (full) | 128K (full) | 128K (full) |
Model details
- Parameters
- 8.0B (8,030,261,248)
- Layers
- All 32 layers use full attention
- Attention cache
- 8 KV heads × 128
- Context length
- 131,072 tokens
- Published weights
- 15.0 GB (BF16)
- On Hugging Face
- meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
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Numbers read from the model files on Hugging Face on .