Can Falcon 40B Instruct run on NVIDIA L4 24GB?

YES — With NVFP4

B56Good

○Estimated from fit model

Falcon 40B Instruct needs ~27.8 GB VRAM. NVIDIA L4 24GB has 24.0 GB. With NVFP4 quantization, expect ~6 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: LowStack: BasicBottleneck: Host offload

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 L4 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

2.7 tok/s

TTFT

72574 ms

Safe context

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 L4 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: 2.7 tok/s decode · 72.6s TTFT (warm) · 7 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

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	F	Too heavy	2.6 tok/s	40662 ms	4K
Coding	F	Too heavy	2.5 tok/s	78925 ms	4K
Agentic Coding	F	Too heavy	2.2 tok/s	128108 ms	4K
Reasoning	F	Too heavy	2.5 tok/s	93274 ms	4K
RAG	F	Too heavy	2.2 tok/s	160135 ms	4K

Quantization options

How Falcon 40B Instruct (40B params) fits at each quantization level on NVIDIA L4 24GB (24.0 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_KBest for your GPU	2	15.6 GB	Low	A70
Q3_K_S	3	19.6 GB	Low	F0

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 (+1492)

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 989%.

~$1,999 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell 32GBNVIDIA upgrade

32 GB VRAM (+8)896 GB/s (+596)

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 581%.

~$2,499 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX A6000 48GBBudget pick

48 GB VRAM (+24)768 GB/s (+468)

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 L4 24GB See all hardware for Falcon 40B Instruct

URL: https://willitrunai.com/can-run/falcon-40b-instruct-on-l4-24gb

⇱

Can Falcon 40B Instruct run on NVIDIA L4 24GB?

YES — With NVFP4

Choose the run profile you care about

Memory breakdown

See how fast it feels

What limits this setup

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

Quantization options

Get started

Hardware that runs Falcon 40B Instruct well

Frequently asked questions