Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) on RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (16GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) (109B total, 17.2B active, Sparse MoE + GQA) uses 61.95 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 64.01 GiB total at 8K context and 68.51 GiB at 32K on RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (~5.9 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
16 GB · 448 GB/s
Exceeds Available GPU Memory
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 64.01 GiB (68.73 GB) / 16 GiB (400%)
Model Weights: 61.95 GiB KV Cache & State: 1.5 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.56 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
64.01 GiB
68.73 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
15.2 GiB
16 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
-48.81 GiB
400% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~5.9 tok/s
17.2B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~831 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~4927 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$20.81
Sparse MoE + GQA · Llama 4

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
~$8,500
Best Value / Used GPU
2x A100 80GB SXM
160GB · ~$24,000
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 unsloth/Llama-4-Scout-17B-16E-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve meta-llama/Llama-4-Scout-17B-16E-Instruct \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~4927ms · ~5.9 tok/s)
[Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) · 64.01 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: 2026-11-05
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) — Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B)

QLoRA (4b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
65.47 GiB
Model Weights: 61.95 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 2.41 GiB · Act: 1.11 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
208.29 GiB
Model Weights: 203.03 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 3.78 GiB · Act: 1.48 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
835.02 GiB
Model Weights: 203.03 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 629.39 GiB · Act: 2.6 GiB
Recommended GPU: 8x H200 141GB SXM (1128GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

A single RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (16GB) cannot hold 4-bit Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) (64.01 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

Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) uses Sparse MoE + GQA (109B total, 17.2B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 1.5 GiB to 6 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 3 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 65.51 GiB).

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

Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 63.26 GiB, 8K: 64.01 GiB, 32K: 68.51 GiB, 128K: 86.51 GiB) 4K 63.26 GiB (KV 0.75 GiB) 8K 64.01 GiB (KV 1.5 GiB) 32K 68.51 GiB (KV 6 GiB) 128K 86.51 GiB (KV 24 GiB) RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (16GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (RTX 5060 Ti 16GB) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 203.03 GiB 1.5 GiB 205.09 GiB (220.21 GB) ~1.7 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 107.86 GiB 1.5 GiB 109.92 GiB (118.03 GB) ~3.2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 83.24 GiB 1.5 GiB 85.3 GiB (91.59 GB) ~4.3 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 72.41 GiB 1.5 GiB 74.47 GiB (79.96 GB) ~5 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) 61.95 GiB 1.5 GiB 64.01 GiB (68.73 GB) ~5.9 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 54.23 GiB 1.5 GiB 56.29 GiB (60.44 GB) ~6.9 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 49.88 GiB 1.5 GiB 51.94 GiB (55.77 GB) ~7.6 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 35.32 GiB 1.5 GiB 37.38 GiB (40.14 GB) ~11.6 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory A40 48GB (48GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) fit on RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (16GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) requires 64.01 GiB total GPU memory (61.95 GiB weights + 1.5 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 15.2 GiB usable on RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, delivering ~5.9 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (109B) (Sparse MoE + GQA) allocates 6 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 68.51 GiB (73.56 GB decimal).

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