Devstral Small 24B on RTX 4090 D (24GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Devstral Small 24B (23.6B total, 23.6B active, Dense GQA) uses 13.59 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 15.4 GiB total at 8K context and 19.15 GiB at 32K on RTX 4090 D (~43.4 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
24 GB · 1008 GB/s
Fits with Safe Headroom
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 15.4 GiB (16.54 GB) / 24 GiB (64%)
Model Weights: 13.59 GiB KV Cache & State: 1.25 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.56 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
15.4 GiB
16.54 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
22.8 GiB
24 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
+7.4 GiB
64% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~43.4 tok/s
23.6B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~1597 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~2564 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$1.21
Dense GQA · Apache-2.0

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB)
~$599
Best Value / Used GPU
RTX 3090 (24GB)
~$750
Apple Unified Memory
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 128GB
~$1,999
Cloud From
Vast.ai · $0.19 / hr
1x RTX 3090

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/Devstral-Small-2505-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve mistralai/Devstral-Small-2505 \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~2564ms · ~43.4 tok/s)
[Devstral Small 24B · 15.4 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
~26.6 months
Est. local power: $4.26 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 1x RTX 3090 (Community Cloud) 24 GB $0.22 / hr $26.75 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗
Vast.ai 1x RTX 3090 (Verified Host) 24 GB $0.19 / hr $22.98 / mo Spot / On-demand Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr ($300 Free Credit*) 1x L40S 48GB (Dedicated Instance · $300 Credit*) 48 GB $1.67 / hr $203.19 / mo Hourly Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr Cloud GPU 1x L40S 48GB (Dedicated Instance) 48 GB $1.67 / hr $203.19 / mo Hourly Deploy GPU ↗
DigitalOcean 1x RTX 6000 Ada (Dedicated Instance) 48 GB $1.57 / hr $190.91 / 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) — Devstral Small 24B

QLoRA (4b) Fits with Safe Headroom
18 GiB
Model Weights: 13.59 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 3.3 GiB · Act: 1.11 GiB
Recommended GPU: Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
50.63 GiB
Model Weights: 43.96 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 5.19 GiB · Act: 1.48 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
182.84 GiB
Model Weights: 43.96 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 136.28 GiB · Act: 2.6 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

RTX 4090 D (24GB physical, 22.8 GiB usable) runs 4-bit (Q4_K_M) Devstral Small 24B at 8K context using 15.4 GiB with 7.4 GiB of safe headroom (~43.4 tok/s single-stream decode).

KV Cache & Runtime Tuning

Devstral Small 24B uses Dense GQA (23.6B total, 23.6B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 1.25 GiB to 5 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 2.5 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 16.65 GiB).

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

Devstral Small 24B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 14.78 GiB, 8K: 15.4 GiB, 32K: 19.15 GiB, 128K: 34.15 GiB) 4K 14.78 GiB (KV 0.63 GiB) 8K 15.4 GiB (KV 1.25 GiB) 32K 19.15 GiB (KV 5 GiB) 128K 34.15 GiB (KV 20 GiB) RTX 4090 D (24GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Devstral Small 24B @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (RTX 4090 D) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 43.96 GiB 1.25 GiB 45.77 GiB (49.15 GB) ~2.2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 23.35 GiB 1.25 GiB 25.16 GiB (27.02 GB) ~17.1 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 18.02 GiB 1.25 GiB 19.83 GiB (21.29 GB) ~33.2 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 15.77 GiB 1.25 GiB 17.58 GiB (18.88 GB) ~37.7 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Config-derived formula
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) 13.59 GiB 1.25 GiB 15.4 GiB (16.54 GB) ~43.4 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 11.87 GiB 1.25 GiB 13.68 GiB (14.69 GB) ~49.3 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 10.91 GiB 1.25 GiB 12.72 GiB (13.66 GB) ~53.3 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 7.83 GiB 1.25 GiB 9.64 GiB (10.35 GB) ~72.3 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Devstral Small 24B fit on RTX 4090 D (24GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Devstral Small 24B requires 15.4 GiB total GPU memory (13.59 GiB weights + 1.25 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 22.8 GiB usable on RTX 4090 D, delivering ~43.4 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Devstral Small 24B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Devstral Small 24B (Dense GQA) allocates 5 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 19.15 GiB (20.56 GB decimal).

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