ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) on RTX 3060 12GB (12GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) (300B total, 47B active, Sparse MoE + GQA) uses 169.72 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 171.98 GiB total at 8K context and 177.04 GiB at 32K on RTX 3060 12GB (~2 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
12 GB · 360 GB/s
Exceeds Available GPU Memory
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 171.98 GiB (184.66 GB) / 12 GiB (1433%)
Model Weights: 169.72 GiB KV Cache & State: 1.69 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.57 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
171.98 GiB
184.66 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
11.4 GiB
12 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
-160.58 GiB
1433% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~2 tok/s
47B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~138 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~29617 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$359.72
Sparse MoE + GQA · Apache-2.0

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB)
~$15,000
Best Value / Used GPU
2x H200 141GB SXM
282GB · ~$64,000
Apple Unified Memory
Mac Studio M4 Ultra 256GB
~$5,999
Cloud From
DigitalOcean · $2.59 / hr
1x Instinct MI300X 192GB

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/ERNIE-4.5-300B-A47B-PT-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve baidu/ERNIE-4.5-300B-A47B-PT \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~29617ms · ~2 tok/s)
[ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) · 171.98 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
~18.1 months
Est. local power: $15.96 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 1x B300 288GB Blackwell Ultra (Community Cloud) 288 GB $6.94 / hr $843.90 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗
Vast.ai 2x RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (Verified Host) 192 GB $3.35 / hr $406.87 / mo Spot / On-demand Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr ($300 Free Credit*) 4x L40S 48GB (Dedicated Instance · $300 Credit*) 192 GB $6.68 / hr $812.77 / mo Hourly Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr Cloud GPU 4x L40S 48GB (Dedicated Instance) 192 GB $6.68 / hr $812.77 / 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) — ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心)

QLoRA (4b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
177.5 GiB
Model Weights: 169.72 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 6.58 GiB · Act: 1.2 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
570.75 GiB
Model Weights: 558.79 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 10.34 GiB · Act: 1.62 GiB
Recommended GPU: 4x B200 180GB (720GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
2293.89 GiB
Model Weights: 558.79 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 1732.25 GiB · Act: 2.85 GiB
Recommended GPU: Multi-GPU Required

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

A single RTX 3060 12GB (12GB) cannot hold 4-bit ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) (171.98 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

ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) uses Sparse MoE + GQA (300B total, 47B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 1.69 GiB to 6.75 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 3.37 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 173.67 GiB).

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

ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 171.12 GiB, 8K: 171.98 GiB, 32K: 177.04 GiB, 128K: 197.29 GiB) 4K 171.12 GiB (KV 0.84 GiB) 8K 171.98 GiB (KV 1.69 GiB) 32K 177.04 GiB (KV 6.75 GiB) 128K 197.29 GiB (KV 27 GiB) RTX 3060 12GB (12GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (RTX 3060 12GB) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 558.79 GiB 1.69 GiB 561.05 GiB (602.42 GB) ~0.8 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 296.86 GiB 1.69 GiB 299.12 GiB (321.18 GB) ~1.1 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 229.11 GiB 1.69 GiB 231.37 GiB (248.43 GB) ~1.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 198.89 GiB 1.69 GiB 201.15 GiB (215.98 GB) ~1.7 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB) Config-derived formula
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) 169.72 GiB 1.69 GiB 171.98 GiB (184.66 GB) ~2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 148.68 GiB 1.69 GiB 150.94 GiB (162.07 GB) ~2.3 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 136.77 GiB 1.69 GiB 139.03 GiB (149.28 GB) ~2.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 96.39 GiB 1.69 GiB 98.65 GiB (105.92 GB) ~3.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) fit on RTX 3060 12GB (12GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) requires 171.98 GiB total GPU memory (169.72 GiB weights + 1.69 GiB KV cache + 0.57 GiB runtime buffers) against 11.4 GiB usable on RTX 3060 12GB, delivering ~2 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, ERNIE 4.5 300B-A47B (文心) (Sparse MoE + GQA) allocates 6.75 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 177.04 GiB (190.1 GB decimal).

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