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URL: https://willitrunai.com/can-run/phi-3.5-mini-4b-on-a40-48gb


Can Phi 3.5 Mini 4B run on NVIDIA A40 48GB?

YES — Runs Great

B62Good
Estimated from fit model

Phi 3.5 Mini 4B needs ~14.3 GB VRAM. NVIDIA A40 48GB has 48.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~56 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: MediumStack: BasicBottleneck: Balanced
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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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) — 14.3 GB, 56.0 tok/s, Runs well
14.3 GB required48.0 GB available
30% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

56.0 tok/s

TTFT

3457 ms

Safe context

108K

Memory

14.3 GB / 48.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights2.4 GB
KV Cache5.9 GB
Runtime1.2 GB
Headroom4.8 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsPhi 3.5 Mini 4B on NVIDIA A40 48GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>What is local AI inference?
Local AI inference means running an AI language model directly on your own hardware — your laptop, desktop, or server — instead of sending requests to a remote cloud API. When you run inference locally the model weights are loaded into your GPU or unified memory. Each token you generate requires reading those weights from memory, so memory bandwidth is the main bottleneck for decode speed. Key benefits of running locally: - Full privacy: your prompts never leave your machine - No per-token cost or rate limits - Works offline once the model is downloaded - Latency depends only on your hardware
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>How much VRAM do I need?
It depends on the model size and quantization level. A rough rule of thumb: Model size Q4 (4-bit) Q8 (8-bit) FP16 7B params ~4.3 GB ~7.5 GB ~14 GB 13B params ~7.9 GB ~13.9 GB ~26 GB 70B params ~42.7 GB ~74.9 GB ~140 GB Most people use 4-bit quantization (Q4_K_M) which gives 90-95% of full quality at a fraction of the memory. A 24 GB GPU can comfortably run most 7B-13B models.
Estimated: 56.0 tok/s decode · 3.5s TTFT (warm) · 140 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

This setup is broadly balanced for this model.

No major red flags

This recommendation has enough memory headroom and acceptable estimated speed for the selected workload.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatBRuns well56.0 tok/s1886 ms108K
CodingBRuns well56.0 tok/s3457 ms108K
Agentic CodingBRuns well56.0 tok/s5029 ms108K
ReasoningBRuns well56.0 tok/s4086 ms108K
RAGBRuns well56.0 tok/s6286 ms108K

Quantization options

How Phi 3.5 Mini 4B (4B params) fits at each quantization level on NVIDIA A40 48GB (48.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
1.6 GB
LowB57
Q3_K_S
3
2.0 GB
LowB57
NVFP4
4

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Phi 3.5 Mini 4B on your machine.

Run

ollama run phi3.5

Frequently asked questions

See all results for NVIDIA A40 48GBSee all hardware for Phi 3.5 Mini 4B
2.2 GB
Medium
B57
Q4_K_M
4
2.4 GB
MediumB57
Q5_K_M
5
2.9 GB
HighB57
Q6_K
6
3.3 GB
HighB57
Q8_0
8
4.3 GB
Very HighB57
F16Best for your GPU
16
8.2 GB
MaximumB58