What GPU do I need to run meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?
8.0B parameters, published in BF16. View on Hugging FaceGated
Set up Llama-3.1-8B-InstructLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct is published by meta-llama on Hugging Face, with 5,945,153 downloads and 6,730 likes to date. It's a LlamaForCausalLM model built for text-generation, published natively in BF16, and gated: you'll need to accept the model's terms on Hugging Face before downloading weights.
VRAM required & cheapest live GPU fit
Required VRAM = weight size at each precision, plus a fixed overhead for KV-cache, activations, and fragmentation. Full formula and assumptions: methodology.
A GPU is only matched to a row if its hardware supports that precision, and the primary recommendation is always a single-GPU fit when one exists.
INT4 requires a quantized checkpoint actually published for this model, check its Hugging Face page before relying on this row.
Cheapest way to run Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct at its published (BF16) precision: 1× RTX 3090 on akash, at $0.147/hr per GPU ($0.147/hr total). Quantizing to FP8 or INT4 (rows above) can cost less, but requires a compatible quantized checkpoint to exist for this model.
Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: common questions
Does Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct fit on a 24 GB GPU?
Yes. At BF16 it needs 17.9 GB of VRAM, so a 24 GB card holds it with 6.1 GB to spare. A 16 GB card is not enough for it at BF16.
Do I need approval to download Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?
Yes. meta-llama gates this repository on Hugging Face, so you have to accept its terms with a signed-in account before the weights will download. It does not change the 17.9 GB the model needs once you have them.
What is the least VRAM Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct can run in?
4.5 GB, at INT4 (quantized), which fits a 6 GB card, against 17.9 GB at BF16. That row assumes an INT4 checkpoint has actually been published for this model, so check its Hugging Face page before planning around it.
Does quantizing Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct lower the GPU bill?
Yes. At BF16 the cheapest live fit is one RTX 3090 on akash at $0.147/hr. At INT4 (quantized) it drops to one RTX 3070 on simplepod at $0.050/hr, provided a quantized checkpoint exists for it.
Weight-to-VRAM math, the fit rules, and how live prices are normalized: full methodology.
More meta-llama models
- Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct (1.2B, BF16)
- Meta-Llama-3-8B-Instruct (8.0B, BF16)
- Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct (3.2B, BF16)
- Llama-3.2-1B (1.2B, BF16)
- Llama-2-7b-hf (6.7B, F16)
- Meta-Llama-3-8B (8.0B, BF16)
