What GPU do I need to run nvidia/Qwen3-8B-FP8?
8.2B parameters, published in F8_E4M3. View on Hugging Face
Qwen3-8B-FP8 is published by nvidia on Hugging Face, with 437,522 downloads and 6 likes to date. It's a Qwen3ForCausalLM model built for text-generation, published natively in F8_E4M3.
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.
| Precision | Weight size | Required VRAM | Cheapest live fit | GPUs needed | Est. $/hr (full fit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FP8 (native) | 7.6 GB | 9.2 GB | RTX 4070 | 1 | $0.121/hr |
| INT4 (quantized) | 3.8 GB | 4.6 GB | RTX 3070 | 1 | $0.088/hr |
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 Qwen3-8B-FP8 at its published (F8_E4M3) precision: 1× RTX 4070, at $0.121/hr per GPU ($0.121/hr total). Quantizing to FP8 or INT4 (rows above) can cost less, but requires a compatible quantized checkpoint to exist for this model.
Qwen3-8B-FP8: common questions
Does Qwen3-8B-FP8 fit on a 12 GB GPU?
Yes. At FP8 (native) it needs 9.2 GB of VRAM, so a 12 GB card holds it with 2.8 GB to spare. An 8 GB card is not enough for it at FP8 (native).
Is Qwen3-8B-FP8 already quantized?
Yes. It is published in FP8, one byte per parameter, so the 9.2 GB figure is already a quantized footprint rather than a full-precision one. Only INT4 goes below it, at 4.6 GB. A GPU without FP8 tensor cores cannot run it as published, which is why cards here are matched on precision support and not on VRAM alone.
What is the least VRAM Qwen3-8B-FP8 can run in?
4.6 GB, at INT4 (quantized), which fits a 6 GB card, against 9.2 GB at FP8 (native). 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 Qwen3-8B-FP8 lower the GPU bill?
Yes. At FP8 (native) the cheapest live fit is one RTX 4070 at $0.121/hr. At INT4 (quantized) it drops to one RTX 3070 at $0.088/hr, provided a quantized checkpoint exists for it.
Weight-to-VRAM math, the fit rules, and how live prices are normalized: full methodology.
More nvidia models
- Gemma-4-31B-IT-NVFP4 (20.9B, BF16)
- parakeet-ctc-1.1b (1.1B, F32)
- NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Super-120B-A12B-BF16 (123.6B, BF16)
- Cosmos-Reason2-2B (2.4B, BF16)
- nemotron-3.5-asr-streaming-0.6b (638M, F32)
- NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B-BF16 (31.6B, BF16)
Related reading: RTX 4070 pricing and specs, The NVIDIA Inception program, explained, Google Colab alternatives for dedicated GPU access, Free GPU credits for students and researchers, and RunPod volume disk vs. network volume, compared.