DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) on RTX 5070 Ti (16GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) (552B total, 16B active, Sparse MoE + GQA) uses 311.93 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 313.12 GiB total at 8K context and 314.99 GiB at 32K on RTX 5070 Ti (~5.5 tok/s decode).
Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration
Production Launch Commands
llama-server -hf unsloth/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017-GGUF:Q4_K_M \ --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vllm serve deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 \ --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Cloud GPU Comparison & Rent-vs-Buy TCO
Verified public rates across RunPod, Vast.ai, Vultr, and DigitalOcean.
| Provider | Recommended Instance | Total VRAM | Hourly Rate | Monthly at Selected Hours | Billing Mode | Deploy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RunPod | 2x B200 180GB (Community Cloud) | 360 GB | $11.96 / hr | $1454.34 / mo | Per-second | Deploy GPU ↗ |
| Vast.ai | 2x B200 180GB (Verified Host) | 360 GB | $15.00 / hr | $1824.49 / mo | Spot / On-demand | Deploy GPU ↗ |
| Vultr ($300 Free Credit*) | 8x A100 80GB SXM (Dedicated Instance · $300 Credit*) | 640 GB | $19.18 / hr | $2331.80 / mo | Hourly | Deploy GPU ↗ |
| Vultr Cloud GPU | 8x A100 80GB SXM (Dedicated Instance) | 640 GB | $19.18 / hr | $2331.80 / mo | Hourly | Deploy GPU ↗ |
| DigitalOcean | 8x Instinct MI300X 192GB (Dedicated Instance) | 1536 GB | $20.72 / hr | $2519.55 / 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 V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B)
Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook
Quick Hardware Verdict
A single RTX 5070 Ti (16GB) cannot hold 4-bit DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) (313.12 GiB at 8K) entirely in VRAM. Use multi-GPU tensor parallelism, offload layers to system RAM, or deploy on a larger cloud GPU.
KV Cache & Runtime Tuning
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) uses Sparse MoE + GQA (552B total, 16B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 0.63 GiB to 2.5 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 1.25 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 313.74 GiB).
VRAM Scaling Across Context Windows (4K to 128K, 4-bit Weights)
Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) @ 8K
| Quantization Format | Weights (GiB) | KV Cache | Total VRAM (GiB) | Decode Speed | Compatibility (RTX 5070 Ti) | Recommended GPU | Data Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (FP4FP8) | 1028.18 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 1029.37 GiB (1105.28 GB) | ~1.8 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Multi-GPU Required | Official checkpoint size |
| FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) | 546.22 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 547.41 GiB (587.78 GB) | ~3.3 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Multi-GPU Required | Config-derived formula |
| GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) | 421.55 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 422.74 GiB (453.91 GB) | ~4.1 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Multi-GPU Required | Config-derived formula |
| GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) | 365.78 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 366.97 GiB (394.03 GB) | ~4.7 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Multi-GPU Required | Config-derived formula |
| Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) | 311.93 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 313.12 GiB (336.21 GB) | ~5.5 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Multi-GPU Required | Config-derived formula |
| GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) | 273.3 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 274.49 GiB (294.73 GB) | ~6.2 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Multi-GPU Required | Config-derived formula |
| GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) | 251.43 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 252.62 GiB (271.25 GB) | ~6.7 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Instinct MI355X 288GB (288GB) | Config-derived formula |
| GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) | 176.99 GiB | 0.63 GiB | 178.18 GiB (191.32 GB) | ~9.4 tok/s | Exceeds Available GPU Memory | Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB) | Config-derived formula |
Technical Specifications & FAQ
Does DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) fit on RTX 5070 Ti (16GB)?
In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) requires 313.12 GiB total GPU memory (311.93 GiB weights + 0.63 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 15.2 GiB usable on RTX 5070 Ti, delivering ~5.5 tok/s decode.
How much VRAM does DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) need at 32K context?
At 32,768 context tokens, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (552B-A16B) (Sparse MoE + GQA) allocates 2.5 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 314.99 GiB (338.22 GB decimal).