VOOZH about

URL: https://willitrunai.com/can-run/falcon-40b-instruct-on-a30-24gb


Can Falcon 40B Instruct run on NVIDIA A30 24GB?

YES — With NVFP4

B60Good
Estimated from fit model

Falcon 40B Instruct needs ~27.8 GB VRAM. NVIDIA A30 24GB has 24.0 GB. With NVFP4 quantization, expect ~20 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: HighStack: BasicBottleneck: Host offload
Share:

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.

Current mode

Balanced

Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.

Falcon 40B Instruct at Q5_K_M needs 34.2 GB — too much for NVIDIA A30 24GB (24.0 GB). Runs at NVFP4 (27.8 GB) with medium quality. 3 quantization levels fit.
Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q5_K_M (High quality) — 34.2 GB, exceeds 24.0 GB available
34.2 GB required24.0 GB available
143% VRAM needed

10.2 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization

Fit status

Too heavy

Decode

10.0 tok/s

TTFT

19446 ms

Safe context

4K

Memory

34.2 GB / 24.0 GB

Offload

30%

Memory breakdown

Weights28.8 GB
KV Cache1.8 GB
Runtime1.2 GB
Headroom2.4 GB

See how fast it feels

With memory offload — actual speed may be lower
See how fast it feelsFalcon 40B Instruct on NVIDIA A30 24GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>Solve: If a train travels at 60 mph for 2.5 hours, how far does it go?
Let me work through this step by step. Given information: - Speed = 60 mph (miles per hour) - Time = 2.5 hours Formula: Distance = Speed x Time Calculation: Distance = 60 mph x 2.5 h = 150 miles The train travels 150 miles. Double-check: at 60 mph the train covers 60 miles each hour. In half an hour it covers 30 miles. So in 2.5 hours: 60 + 60 + 30 = 150 miles. Confirmed.
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>What if the train stops for 20 minutes halfway?
The stop doesn't change the total distance covered while moving, but it affects total trip time. Breakdown: - First half: 1.25 hours at 60 mph = 75 miles - Stop: 20 minutes (no distance) - Second half: 1.25 hours at 60 mph = 75 miles Total distance: 150 miles (same) Total time: 2.5 h + 0.33 h = 2.83 hours Average speed: 150 / 2.83 = 53 mph The distance stays the same but average speed drops to 53 mph because of the stop.
Estimated: 10.0 tok/s decode · 19.4s TTFT (warm) · 25 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.

CPU or host-memory offload is active

About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.

Very little memory headroom

You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.

Best improvement path

Remove offload with more accelerator memory

Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.

Buy headroom, not only minimum fit

A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.

Increase host RAM if you keep offloading

This setup may need roughly 3.1 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatFToo heavy9.7 tok/s10895 ms4K
CodingFToo heavy9.2 tok/s21148 ms4K
Agentic CodingFToo heavy8.2 tok/s34327 ms4K
ReasoningFToo heavy9.2 tok/s24993 ms4K
RAGFToo heavy8.2 tok/s42909 ms4K

Quantization options

How Falcon 40B Instruct (40B params) fits at each quantization level on NVIDIA A30 24GB (24.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_KBest for your GPU
2
15.6 GB
LowA70
Q3_K_S
3
19.6 GB
LowF0

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Falcon 40B Instruct on your machine.

Run

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/ggerganov/llama.cpp:full \ --hf-repo "tiiuae/falcon-40b-instruct" \ --hf-file "falcon-40b-instruct-Q5_K_M.gguf" \ -c 4096 -ngl 99

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Falcon 40B Instruct well

👁 NVIDIA
RTX 5090 32GBBest value
32 GB VRAM (+8)1792 GB/s (+859)
B
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.29.4 tok/s decode

Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.

Raises estimated decode speed by about 194%.

~$1,999 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell 32GBNVIDIA upgrade
32 GB VRAM (+8)
B
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.18.4 tok/s decode

Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.

Raises estimated decode speed by about 84%.

~$2,499 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX A6000 48GBBudget pick
48 GB VRAM (+24)
A
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.22.5 tok/s decode

Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.

Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.

~$4,650 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

See all results for NVIDIA A30 24GBSee all hardware for Falcon 40B Instruct
NVFP4
4
22.4 GB
Medium
F0
Q4_K_M
4
24.4 GB
MediumF0
Q5_K_M
5
28.8 GB
HighF0
Q6_K
6
32.8 GB
HighF0
Q8_0
8
42.8 GB
Very HighF0
F16
16
82.0 GB
MaximumF0