Kimi-Dev 72B on RTX 4090 (24GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Kimi-Dev 72B (72.7B total, 72.7B active, Dense GQA) uses 41.54 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 44.61 GiB total at 8K context and 52.11 GiB at 32K on RTX 4090 (~2.4 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
24 GB · 1008 GB/s
Exceeds Available GPU Memory
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 44.61 GiB (47.9 GB) / 24 GiB (186%)
Model Weights: 41.54 GiB KV Cache & State: 2.5 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.57 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
44.61 GiB
47.9 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
22.8 GiB
24 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
-21.81 GiB
186% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~2.4 tok/s
72.7B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~590 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~6941 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$51.16
Dense GQA · MIT

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
~$8,500
Best Value / Used GPU
2x RTX 5090
64GB · ~$5,200
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 moonshotai/Kimi-Dev-72B:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve moonshotai/Kimi-Dev-72B \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~6941ms · ~2.4 tok/s)
[Kimi-Dev 72B · 44.61 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
~64.4 months
Est. local power: $12.77 / 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) — Kimi-Dev 72B

QLoRA (4b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
52.92 GiB
Model Weights: 41.54 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 10.18 GiB · Act: 1.2 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
153.02 GiB
Model Weights: 135.41 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 15.99 GiB · Act: 1.62 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
558.03 GiB
Model Weights: 135.41 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 419.77 GiB · Act: 2.85 GiB
Recommended GPU: 4x B200 180GB (720GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

A single RTX 4090 (24GB) cannot hold 4-bit Kimi-Dev 72B (44.61 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

Kimi-Dev 72B uses Dense GQA (72.7B total, 72.7B 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 47.11 GiB).

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

Kimi-Dev 72B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 43.35 GiB, 8K: 44.61 GiB, 32K: 52.11 GiB, 128K: 82.11 GiB) 4K 43.35 GiB (KV 1.25 GiB) 8K 44.61 GiB (KV 2.5 GiB) 32K 52.11 GiB (KV 10 GiB) 128K 82.11 GiB (KV 40 GiB) RTX 4090 (24GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Kimi-Dev 72B @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (RTX 4090) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 135.41 GiB 2.5 GiB 138.48 GiB (148.69 GB) ~0.8 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 71.94 GiB 2.5 GiB 75.01 GiB (80.54 GB) ~1 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 55.52 GiB 2.5 GiB 58.59 GiB (62.91 GB) ~1.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 48.41 GiB 2.5 GiB 51.48 GiB (55.28 GB) ~1.8 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) 41.54 GiB 2.5 GiB 44.61 GiB (47.9 GB) ~2.4 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 36.33 GiB 2.5 GiB 39.4 GiB (42.31 GB) ~3.1 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 33.41 GiB 2.5 GiB 36.48 GiB (39.17 GB) ~3.8 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 23.78 GiB 2.5 GiB 26.85 GiB (28.83 GB) ~11.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Kimi-Dev 72B fit on RTX 4090 (24GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Kimi-Dev 72B requires 44.61 GiB total GPU memory (41.54 GiB weights + 2.5 GiB KV cache + 0.57 GiB runtime buffers) against 22.8 GiB usable on RTX 4090, delivering ~2.4 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Kimi-Dev 72B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Kimi-Dev 72B (Dense GQA) allocates 10 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 52.11 GiB (55.95 GB decimal).

Evaluate This Model on Other GPUs

Evaluate Other Models on This Hardware