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⇱ Mistral Small 4 119B on NVIDIA A40 48GB? No — Alternatives


Can Mistral Small 4 119B run on NVIDIA A40 48GB?

YES — With Q2_K

A73Great
Estimated from fit model

Mistral Small 4 119B needs ~57.5 GB VRAM. NVIDIA A40 48GB has 48.0 GB. With Q2_K quantization, expect ~16 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: MediumStack: StandardBottleneck: Host offload
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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.

Mistral Small 4 119B at Q4_K_M needs 83.7 GB — too much for NVIDIA A40 48GB (48.0 GB). Runs at Q2_K (57.5 GB) with low quality.
Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) — 83.7 GB, exceeds 48.0 GB available
83.7 GB required48.0 GB available
174% VRAM needed

35.7 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization

Fit status

Too heavy

Decode

5.5 tok/s

TTFT

35129 ms

Safe context

4K

Memory

83.7 GB / 48.0 GB

Offload

40%

Memory breakdown

Weights72.6 GB
KV Cache5.4 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom4.8 GB

See how fast it feels

With memory offload — actual speed may be lower
See how fast it feelsMistral Small 4 119B on NVIDIA A40 48GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>Write a Python function to sort a list
Here's a Python function that sorts a list using quicksort: def quicksort(arr): if len(arr) <= 1: return arr pivot = arr[len(arr) // 2] left = [x for x in arr if x < pivot] middle = [x for x in arr if x == pivot] right = [x for x in arr if x > pivot] return quicksort(left) + middle + quicksort(right) # Example usage numbers = [3, 6, 8, 10, 1, 2, 1] print(quicksort(numbers)) # [1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10] The algorithm picks a pivot, partitions the list into smaller, equal, and larger elements, then recursively sorts each partition and concatenates the results.
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>Now add type hints and a docstring
def quicksort(arr: list[int]) -> list[int]: """Sort a list using the quicksort algorithm. Args: arr: List of integers to sort. Returns: A new sorted list. """ if len(arr) <= 1: return arr pivot = arr[len(arr) // 2] left = [x for x in arr if x < pivot] middle = [x for x in arr if x == pivot] right = [x for x in arr if x > pivot] return quicksort(left) + middle + quicksort(right) Added type hints for the input and return type, plus a Google-style docstring.
Estimated: 5.5 tok/s decode · 35.1s TTFT (warm) · 14 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 20% 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 7.7 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatFToo heavy5.9 tok/s17889 ms4K
CodingFToo heavy5.5 tok/s35129 ms4K
Agentic CodingFToo heavy4.8 tok/s58247 ms4K
ReasoningFToo heavy5.5 tok/s41516 ms4K
RAGFToo heavy4.8 tok/s72809 ms4K

Quantization options

How Mistral Small 4 119B (119B params) fits at each quantization level on NVIDIA A40 48GB (48.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
46.4 GB
LowF0
Q3_K_S
3
58.3 GB
LowF0
NVFP4
4
66.6 GB
MediumF0
Q4_K_M
4
72.6 GB
MediumF0
Q5_K_M
5
85.7 GB
HighF0
Q6_K
6
97.6 GB
HighF0
Q8_0
8
127.3 GB
Very HighF0
F16
16
244.0 GB
MaximumF0

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Mistral Small 4 119B on your machine.

Run

lms load Mistral-Small-4-119B-2603 && lms server start

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Mistral Small 4 119B well

👁 NVIDIA
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition 96GBBudget pick
96 GB VRAM (+48)1792 GB/s (+1096)
S
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.65.6 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.

~$9,999 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition 96GBBest value
96 GB VRAM (+48)1597 GB/s (+901)
S
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.58.5 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.

~$9,999 MSRP

👁 NVIDIA
NVIDIA H20 96GBNVIDIA upgrade
96 GB VRAM (+48)4000 GB/s (+3304)
S
Makes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.141.2 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.

~$12,000 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

See all results for NVIDIA A40 48GBSee all hardware for Mistral Small 4 119B