Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B on A800 80GB SXM (80GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B (123.61B total, 12B active, Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE) uses 78.02 GiB of 4-bit weights (UD-Q4_K_XL), requiring 78.81 GiB total at 8K context and 78.99 GiB at 32K on A800 80GB SXM (~100.6 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
80 GB · 2039 GB/s
Tight Fit (<8% Headroom)
Measured GGUF shard size HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 78.81 GiB (84.62 GB) / 80 GiB (99%)
Model Weights: 78.02 GiB KV Cache & State: 0.23 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.56 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
78.81 GiB
84.62 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
76 GiB
80 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
-2.81 GiB
99% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~100.6 tok/s
12B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~6760 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~606 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$4.62
Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE · NVIDIA Open

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 · $1.67 / hr
1x RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Super-120B-A12B-GGUF:UD-Q4_K_XL \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Super-120B-A12B-BF16 \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~606ms · ~100.6 tok/s)
[Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B · 78.81 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
~44.1 months
Est. local power: $12.77 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 1x RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (Community Cloud) 96 GB $1.69 / hr $205.50 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗
Vast.ai 1x RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (Verified Host) 96 GB $1.67 / hr $203.44 / mo Spot / On-demand Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr ($300 Free Credit*) 2x L40S 48GB (Dedicated Instance · $300 Credit*) 96 GB $3.34 / hr $406.39 / mo Hourly Deploy GPU ↗
Vultr Cloud GPU 2x L40S 48GB (Dedicated Instance) 96 GB $3.34 / hr $406.39 / 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) — Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B

QLoRA (4b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
80.78 GiB
Model Weights: 78.02 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 1.68 GiB · Act: 1.08 GiB
Recommended GPU: RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
234.31 GiB
Model Weights: 230.24 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 2.64 GiB · Act: 1.43 GiB
Recommended GPU: Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
946.5 GiB
Model Weights: 230.24 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 713.74 GiB · Act: 2.52 GiB
Recommended GPU: 8x H200 141GB SXM (1128GB)

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

A single A800 80GB SXM (80GB) cannot hold 4-bit Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B (78.81 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

Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B uses Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE (123.61B total, 12B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 0.23 GiB to 0.41 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 0.12 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 78.87 GiB).

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

Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 78.78 GiB, 8K: 78.81 GiB, 32K: 78.99 GiB, 128K: 79.74 GiB) 4K 78.78 GiB (KV 0.2 GiB) 8K 78.81 GiB (KV 0.23 GiB) 32K 78.99 GiB (KV 0.41 GiB) 128K 79.74 GiB (KV 1.16 GiB) A800 80GB SXM (80GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B @ 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) (BF16) 230.24 GiB 0.23 GiB 231.03 GiB (248.07 GB) ~3.3 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB) Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 119.65 GiB 0.23 GiB 120.44 GiB (129.32 GB) ~11.2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 106.87 GiB 0.23 GiB 107.66 GiB (115.6 GB) ~15.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 99.96 GiB 0.23 GiB 100.75 GiB (108.18 GB) ~19.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Measured GGUF shard size
Q4_K_M / UD-Q4_K_XL / AWQ (4-bit — Recommended) (UD-Q4_K_XL) 78.02 GiB 0.23 GiB 78.81 GiB (84.62 GB) ~100.6 tok/s Tight Fit (<8% Headroom) RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 60.06 GiB 0.23 GiB 60.85 GiB (65.34 GB) ~122.4 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 57.47 GiB 0.23 GiB 58.26 GiB (62.56 GB) ~126.3 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Measured GGUF shard size
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 50.9 GiB 0.23 GiB 51.69 GiB (55.5 GB) ~137.6 tok/s Fits with Safe Headroom RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96GB) Measured GGUF shard size

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B fit on A800 80GB SXM (80GB)?

In 4-bit (UD-Q4_K_XL) at 8,192 context, Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B requires 78.81 GiB total GPU memory (78.02 GiB weights + 0.23 GiB KV cache + 0.56 GiB runtime buffers) against 76 GiB usable on A800 80GB SXM, delivering ~100.6 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Nemotron 3 Super 120B-A12B (Hybrid Linear/Mamba + MoE) allocates 0.41 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 78.99 GiB (84.81 GB decimal).

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