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URL: https://willitrunai.com/can-run/phi-3.5-mini-4b-on-l40-48gb

⇱ Phi 3.5 Mini 4B on NVIDIA L40 48GB? YES


Can Phi 3.5 Mini 4B run on NVIDIA L40 48GB?

YES — Runs Great

B63Good
Estimated from fit model

Phi 3.5 Mini 4B needs ~14.0 GB VRAM. NVIDIA L40 48GB has 48.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~64 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: HighStack: StandardBottleneck: Balanced
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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) — 14.0 GB, 64.0 tok/s, Runs well
14.0 GB required48.0 GB available
29% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

64.0 tok/s

TTFT

3025 ms

Safe context

109K

Memory

14.0 GB / 48.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights2.4 GB
KV Cache5.9 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom4.8 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsPhi 3.5 Mini 4B on NVIDIA L40 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: 64.0 tok/s decode · 3.0s TTFT (warm) · 160 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 well64.0 tok/s1650 ms109K
CodingBRuns well64.0 tok/s3025 ms109K
Agentic CodingBRuns well64.0 tok/s4400 ms109K
ReasoningBRuns well64.0 tok/s3575 ms109K
RAGBRuns well64.0 tok/s5500 ms109K

Quantization options

How Phi 3.5 Mini 4B (4B params) fits at each quantization level on NVIDIA L40 48GB (48.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
1.6 GB
LowB57
Q3_K_S
3
2.0 GB
LowB57
NVFP4
4
2.2 GB
MediumB57
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

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 L40 48GBSee all hardware for Phi 3.5 Mini 4B