Liquid LFM3 1.7B on RTX 4070 Ti Super (16GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Liquid LFM3 1.7B (1.7B total, 1.7B active, Hybrid Linear + Full Attention) uses 1.06 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 1.73 GiB total at 8K context and 2.01 GiB at 32K on RTX 4070 Ti Super (~293.2 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
16 GB · 672 GB/s
Fits with Safe Headroom
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 1.73 GiB (1.86 GB) / 16 GiB (11%)
Model Weights: 1.06 GiB KV Cache & State: 0.11 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.56 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
1.73 GiB
1.86 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
15.2 GiB
16 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
+13.47 GiB
11% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~293.2 tok/s
1.7B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~13459 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~304 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.06
Hybrid Linear + Full Attention · Apache-2.0

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB)
~$430
Best Value / Used GPU
RTX 3060 12GB (12GB)
~$280
Apple Unified Memory
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 128GB
~$1,999
Cloud From
Vast.ai · $0.06 / hr
1x RTX 3060 12GB

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~304ms · ~293.2 tok/s)
[Liquid LFM3 1.7B · 1.73 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
~18.5 months
Est. local power: $3.51 / 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 3060 12GB (Verified Host) 12 GB $0.06 / hr $7.42 / 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) — Liquid LFM3 1.7B

QLoRA (4b) Fits with Safe Headroom
3.27 GiB
Model Weights: 1.06 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 1.2 GiB · Act: 1.01 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB)
LoRA (16b) Fits with Safe Headroom
6.31 GiB
Model Weights: 3.17 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 1.8 GiB · Act: 1.34 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB)
Full BF16 Tight Fit (<8% Headroom)
15.36 GiB
Model Weights: 3.17 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 9.83 GiB · Act: 2.36 GiB
Recommended GPU: Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

RTX 4070 Ti Super (16GB physical, 15.2 GiB usable) runs 4-bit (Q4_K_M) Liquid LFM3 1.7B at 8K context using 1.73 GiB with 13.47 GiB of safe headroom (~293.2 tok/s single-stream decode).

KV Cache & Runtime Tuning

Liquid LFM3 1.7B uses Hybrid Linear + Full Attention (1.7B total, 1.7B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 0.11 GiB to 0.39 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 0.19 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 1.82 GiB).

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

Liquid LFM3 1.7B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 1.67 GiB, 8K: 1.73 GiB, 32K: 2.01 GiB, 128K: 3.13 GiB) 4K 1.67 GiB (KV 0.06 GiB) 8K 1.73 GiB (KV 0.11 GiB) 32K 2.01 GiB (KV 0.39 GiB) 128K 3.13 GiB (KV 1.51 GiB) RTX 4070 Ti Super (16GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Liquid LFM3 1.7B @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (RTX 4070 Ti Super) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 3.17 GiB 0.11 GiB 3.84 GiB (4.12 GB) ~118 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 1.68 GiB 0.11 GiB 2.35 GiB (2.52 GB) ~204.2 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 1.3 GiB 0.11 GiB 1.97 GiB (2.12 GB) ~250.9 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 1.18 GiB 0.11 GiB 1.85 GiB (1.99 GB) ~270.4 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (Q4_K_M) 1.06 GiB 0.11 GiB 1.73 GiB (1.86 GB) ~293.2 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 0.92 GiB 0.11 GiB 1.59 GiB (1.71 GB) ~325.3 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) 0.84 GiB 0.11 GiB 1.51 GiB (1.62 GB) ~347 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) 0.65 GiB 0.11 GiB 1.32 GiB (1.42 GB) ~380 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX 4060 Ti 16GB (16GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Liquid LFM3 1.7B fit on RTX 4070 Ti Super (16GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Liquid LFM3 1.7B requires 1.73 GiB total GPU memory (1.06 GiB weights + 0.11 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 15.2 GiB usable on RTX 4070 Ti Super, delivering ~293.2 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Liquid LFM3 1.7B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Liquid LFM3 1.7B (Hybrid Linear + Full Attention) allocates 0.39 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 2.01 GiB (2.16 GB decimal).

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