Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) on A800 80GB SXM (80GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) (1000B total, 32B active, Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) MoE) uses 565.08 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 566.19 GiB total at 8K context and 567.79 GiB at 32K on A800 80GB SXM (~3.2 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
80 GB · 2039 GB/s
Exceeds Available GPU Memory
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 566.19 GiB (607.94 GB) / 80 GiB (708%)
Model Weights: 565.08 GiB KV Cache & State: 0.54 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.57 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
566.19 GiB
607.94 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
76 GiB
80 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
-490.19 GiB
708% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~3.2 tok/s
32B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~2535 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~1616 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$306.94
Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) MoE · Modified MIT

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
Multi-GPU Required
—
Best Value / Used GPU
4x B200 180GB
720GB · ~$160,000
Apple Unified Memory
Exceeds 512 GB
—
Cloud From
Vast.ai · $3.54 / hr
8x A100 80GB SXM

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/Kimi-K2-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve moonshotai/Kimi-K2-Instruct \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~1616ms · ~3.2 tok/s)
[Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) · 566.19 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
~10 months
Est. local power: $8.51 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 8x A100 80GB SXM (Community Cloud · PCIe) 640 GB $9.52 / hr $1157.63 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗
Vast.ai 8x A100 80GB SXM (Verified Host · SXM4) 640 GB $3.54 / hr $429.98 / 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) — Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B)

QLoRA (4b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
570.73 GiB
Model Weights: 565.08 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 4.48 GiB · Act: 1.17 GiB
Recommended GPU: 4x B200 180GB (720GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
1871.21 GiB
Model Weights: 1862.6 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 7.04 GiB · Act: 1.57 GiB
Recommended GPU: Multi-GPU Required
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
7639.43 GiB
Model Weights: 1862.6 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 5774.06 GiB · Act: 2.77 GiB
Recommended GPU: Multi-GPU Required

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

A single A800 80GB SXM (80GB) cannot hold 4-bit Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) (566.19 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 K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) uses Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) MoE (1000B total, 32B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 0.54 GiB to 2.14 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 1.07 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 566.72 GiB).

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

Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 565.91 GiB, 8K: 566.19 GiB, 32K: 567.79 GiB, 128K: 574.23 GiB) 4K 565.91 GiB (KV 0.27 GiB) 8K 566.19 GiB (KV 0.54 GiB) 32K 567.79 GiB (KV 2.14 GiB) 128K 574.23 GiB (KV 8.58 GiB) A800 80GB SXM (80GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (A800 80GB SXM) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (FP8) 1862.6 GiB 0.54 GiB 1863.71 GiB (2001.14 GB) ~0.9 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 989.53 GiB 0.54 GiB 990.64 GiB (1063.69 GB) ~1.7 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 763.68 GiB 0.54 GiB 764.79 GiB (821.19 GB) ~2.3 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 662.64 GiB 0.54 GiB 663.75 GiB (712.7 GB) ~2.7 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) 565.08 GiB 0.54 GiB 566.19 GiB (607.94 GB) ~3.2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 495.11 GiB 0.54 GiB 496.22 GiB (532.81 GB) ~3.7 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 455.48 GiB 0.54 GiB 456.59 GiB (490.26 GB) ~4 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 320.62 GiB 0.54 GiB 321.73 GiB (345.45 GB) ~6.1 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) fit on A800 80GB SXM (80GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) requires 566.19 GiB total GPU memory (565.08 GiB weights + 0.54 GiB KV cache + 0.57 GiB runtime buffers) against 76 GiB usable on A800 80GB SXM, delivering ~3.2 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Kimi K2 Instruct (1T-A32B) (Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) MoE) allocates 2.14 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 567.79 GiB (609.66 GB decimal).

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