Gemma 4 31B IT on H100 80GB SXM (80GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Gemma 4 31B IT (31.27B total, 31.27B active, Dense GQA) uses 17.07 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 19.04 GiB total at 8K context and 20.91 GiB at 32K on H100 80GB SXM (~108.8 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
80 GB · 3350 GB/s
Fits with Safe Headroom
Measured GGUF shard size HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 19.04 GiB (20.44 GB) / 80 GiB (24%)
Model Weights: 17.07 GiB KV Cache & State: 1.41 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.56 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
19.04 GiB
20.44 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
76 GiB
80 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
+56.96 GiB
24% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~108.8 tok/s
31.27B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~8223 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~498 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.48
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/gemma-4-31B-it-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve google/gemma-4-31B-it \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~498ms · ~108.8 tok/s)
[Gemma 4 31B IT · 19.04 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) — Gemma 4 31B IT

QLoRA (4b) Fits with Safe Headroom
22.57 GiB
Model Weights: 17.07 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 4.38 GiB · Act: 1.12 GiB
Recommended GPU: Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB)
LoRA (16b) Fits with Safe Headroom
66.61 GiB
Model Weights: 58.24 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 6.88 GiB · Act: 1.49 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
241.4 GiB
Model Weights: 58.24 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 180.54 GiB · Act: 2.62 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI355X 288GB (288GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

H100 80GB SXM (80GB physical, 76 GiB usable) runs 4-bit (Q4_K_M) Gemma 4 31B IT at 8K context using 19.04 GiB with 56.96 GiB of safe headroom (~108.8 tok/s single-stream decode).

KV Cache & Runtime Tuning

Gemma 4 31B IT uses Dense GQA (31.27B total, 31.27B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 1.41 GiB to 3.28 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 1.64 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 19.27 GiB).

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

Gemma 4 31B IT VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 18.72 GiB, 8K: 19.04 GiB, 32K: 20.91 GiB, 128K: 28.41 GiB) 4K 18.72 GiB (KV 1.09 GiB) 8K 19.04 GiB (KV 1.41 GiB) 32K 20.91 GiB (KV 3.28 GiB) 128K 28.41 GiB (KV 10.78 GiB) H100 80GB SXM (80GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Gemma 4 31B IT @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (H100 80GB SXM) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 58.24 GiB 1.41 GiB 60.21 GiB (64.65 GB) ~34.5 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 30.94 GiB 1.41 GiB 32.91 GiB (35.34 GB) ~63 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 23.47 GiB 1.41 GiB 25.44 GiB (27.32 GB) ~81.5 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 20.17 GiB 1.41 GiB 22.14 GiB (23.77 GB) ~93.6 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB) Measured GGUF shard size
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) 17.07 GiB 1.41 GiB 19.04 GiB (20.44 GB) ~108.8 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 15.25 GiB 1.41 GiB 17.22 GiB (18.49 GB) ~120.3 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 13.72 GiB 1.41 GiB 15.69 GiB (16.85 GB) ~132 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 10.97 GiB 1.41 GiB 12.94 GiB (13.89 GB) ~160 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Measured GGUF shard size

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Gemma 4 31B IT fit on H100 80GB SXM (80GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Gemma 4 31B IT requires 19.04 GiB total GPU memory (17.07 GiB weights + 1.41 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 76 GiB usable on H100 80GB SXM, delivering ~108.8 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Gemma 4 31B IT need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Gemma 4 31B IT (Dense GQA) allocates 3.28 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 20.91 GiB (22.45 GB decimal).

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