DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B on H800 80GB SXM (80GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B (70.55B total, 70.55B active, Dense GQA) uses 40.25 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 43.32 GiB total at 8K context and 50.82 GiB at 32K on H800 80GB SXM (~48.8 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
80 GB · 3350 GB/s
Fits with Safe Headroom
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 43.32 GiB (46.51 GB) / 80 GiB (54%)
Model Weights: 40.25 GiB KV Cache & State: 2.5 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.57 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
43.32 GiB
46.51 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
76 GiB
80 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
+32.68 GiB
54% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~48.8 tok/s
70.55B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~3645 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~1124 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$2.52
Dense GQA · MIT

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
A40 48GB (48GB)
~$5,200
Best Value / Used GPU
RTX A6000 (48GB)
~$4,500
Apple Unified Memory
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 128GB
~$1,999
Cloud From
Vast.ai · $0.44 / hr
1x A100 80GB SXM

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-70B-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-70B \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~1124ms · ~48.8 tok/s)
[DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B · 43.32 GiB] allocated on target GPU. Prefill completed in TTFT window; streaming autoregressive tokens at memory-bandwidth-bound rate...

Cloud GPU Comparison & Rent-vs-Buy TCO

Verified public rates across RunPod, Vast.ai, Vultr, and DigitalOcean.

Verified: 2026-11-04
Purchase break-even
~37.6 months
Est. local power: $6.38 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 1x A100 80GB SXM (Community Cloud · PCIe) 80 GB $1.19 / hr $144.70 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗
Vast.ai 1x A100 80GB SXM (Verified Host · SXM4) 80 GB $0.44 / hr $53.75 / mo Spot / On-demand Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr ($300 Free Credit*) 1x A100 80GB SXM (Dedicated Instance · $300 Credit*) 80 GB $2.40 / hr $291.48 / mo Hourly Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr Cloud GPU 1x A100 80GB SXM (Dedicated Instance) 80 GB $2.40 / hr $291.48 / mo Hourly Deploy GPU ↗
DigitalOcean 1x Instinct MI300X 192GB (Dedicated Instance) 192 GB $2.59 / hr $314.94 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗

Rates reflect public listings on the verification date and fluctuate with regional inventory.

Fine-Tuning VRAM Requirements (QLoRA / LoRA / Full) — DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B

QLoRA (4b) Fits with Safe Headroom
51.33 GiB
Model Weights: 40.25 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 9.88 GiB · Act: 1.2 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
148.55 GiB
Model Weights: 131.41 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 15.52 GiB · Act: 1.62 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
541.63 GiB
Model Weights: 131.41 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 407.37 GiB · Act: 2.85 GiB
Recommended GPU: 4x B200 180GB (720GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

H800 80GB SXM (80GB physical, 76 GiB usable) runs 4-bit (Q4_K_M) DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B at 8K context using 43.32 GiB with 32.68 GiB of safe headroom (~48.8 tok/s single-stream decode).

KV Cache & Runtime Tuning

DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B uses Dense GQA (70.55B total, 70.55B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 2.5 GiB to 10 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 5 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 45.82 GiB).

VRAM Scaling Across Context Windows (4K to 128K, 4-bit Weights)

DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 42.06 GiB, 8K: 43.32 GiB, 32K: 50.82 GiB, 128K: 80.82 GiB) 4K 42.06 GiB (KV 1.25 GiB) 8K 43.32 GiB (KV 2.5 GiB) 32K 50.82 GiB (KV 10 GiB) 128K 80.82 GiB (KV 40 GiB) H800 80GB SXM (80GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (H800 80GB SXM) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 131.41 GiB 2.5 GiB 134.48 GiB (144.4 GB) ~0.9 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 69.81 GiB 2.5 GiB 72.88 GiB (78.25 GB) ~28.8 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 53.88 GiB 2.5 GiB 56.95 GiB (61.15 GB) ~37 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 46.95 GiB 2.5 GiB 50.02 GiB (53.71 GB) ~42.2 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) 40.25 GiB 2.5 GiB 43.32 GiB (46.51 GB) ~48.8 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 35.21 GiB 2.5 GiB 38.28 GiB (41.1 GB) ~55.4 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 32.38 GiB 2.5 GiB 35.45 GiB (38.06 GB) ~59.9 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 23.01 GiB 2.5 GiB 26.08 GiB (28 GB) ~82.1 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B fit on H800 80GB SXM (80GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B requires 43.32 GiB total GPU memory (40.25 GiB weights + 2.5 GiB KV cache + 0.57 GiB runtime buffers) against 76 GiB usable on H800 80GB SXM, delivering ~48.8 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, DeepSeek R1 Distill Llama 70B (Dense GQA) allocates 10 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 50.82 GiB (54.57 GB decimal).

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