Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B on H100 80GB SXM (80GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B (31.58B total, 3.5B active, Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE) uses 22.89 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 23.54 GiB total at 8K context and 23.68 GiB at 32K on H100 80GB SXM (~264.6 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) 23.54 GiB (25.28 GB) / 80 GiB (29%)
Model Weights: 22.89 GiB KV Cache & State: 0.09 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.56 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
23.54 GiB
25.28 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
76 GiB
80 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
+52.46 GiB
29% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~264.6 tok/s
3.5B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~24000 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~171 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$0.35
Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE · NVIDIA Open

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB)
~$1,299
Best Value / Used GPU
RTX A6000 (48GB)
~$4,500
Apple Unified Memory
Ryzen AI Max+ 395 128GB
~$1,999
Cloud From
RunPod · $0.33 / hr
1x RTX A6000

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B-BF16 \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~171ms · ~264.6 tok/s)
[Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B · 23.54 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
~38.5 months
Est. local power: $6.38 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 1x RTX A6000 (Community Cloud) 48 GB $0.33 / hr $40.13 / 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 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) — Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B

QLoRA (4b) Fits with Safe Headroom
25.12 GiB
Model Weights: 22.89 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 1.2 GiB · Act: 1.03 GiB
Recommended GPU: Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB)
LoRA (16b) Fits with Safe Headroom
61.99 GiB
Model Weights: 58.82 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 1.8 GiB · Act: 1.37 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
243.57 GiB
Model Weights: 58.82 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 182.34 GiB · Act: 2.41 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) Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B at 8K context using 23.54 GiB with 52.46 GiB of safe headroom (~264.6 tok/s single-stream decode).

KV Cache & Runtime Tuning

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B uses Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE (31.58B total, 3.5B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 0.09 GiB to 0.23 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 0.09 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 23.59 GiB).

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

Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 23.51 GiB, 8K: 23.54 GiB, 32K: 23.68 GiB, 128K: 24.25 GiB) 4K 23.51 GiB (KV 0.07 GiB) 8K 23.54 GiB (KV 0.09 GiB) 32K 23.68 GiB (KV 0.23 GiB) 128K 24.25 GiB (KV 0.8 GiB) H100 80GB SXM (80GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B @ 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) 58.82 GiB 0.09 GiB 59.47 GiB (63.86 GB) ~160.3 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 31.28 GiB 0.09 GiB 31.93 GiB (34.28 GB) ~229.7 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom A40 48GB (48GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 27.6 GiB 0.09 GiB 28.25 GiB (30.33 GB) ~243.8 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) 24.35 GiB 0.09 GiB 25 GiB (26.84 GB) ~257.8 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) 22.89 GiB 0.09 GiB 23.54 GiB (25.28 GB) ~264.6 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Radeon AI PRO R9700 32GB (32GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 19.8 GiB 0.09 GiB 20.45 GiB (21.96 GB) ~280.2 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) 18.63 GiB 0.09 GiB 19.28 GiB (20.7 GB) ~286.7 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) 16.92 GiB 0.09 GiB 17.57 GiB (18.87 GB) ~296.6 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom Arc Pro B60 24GB (24GB) Measured GGUF shard size

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B fit on H100 80GB SXM (80GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B requires 23.54 GiB total GPU memory (22.89 GiB weights + 0.09 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 76 GiB usable on H100 80GB SXM, delivering ~264.6 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Nemotron 3 Nano 30B-A3B (Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE) allocates 0.23 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 23.68 GiB (25.43 GB decimal).

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