Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B on RTX 5090 D (32GB) — VRAM, KV Cache & Throughput

Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B (480B total, 35B active, Sparse MoE + GQA) uses 271.39 GiB of 4-bit weights (Q4_K_M), requiring 273.9 GiB total at 8K context and 279.71 GiB at 32K on RTX 5090 D (~2.8 tok/s decode).

Interactive Sizing Workbench

Full Compatibility Report →
32 GB · 1792 GB/s
Exceeds Available GPU Memory
Config-derived formula HF config.json ↗
Memory Allocation Breakdown (GiB) 273.9 GiB (294.1 GB) / 32 GiB (856%)
Model Weights: 271.39 GiB KV Cache & State: 1.94 GiB Runtime & Activation Buffers: 0.57 GiB System RAM Offload: 0 GiB
Required GPU Memory
273.9 GiB
294.1 GB (decimal)
Usable Hardware Memory
30.4 GiB
32 GB (physical)
Safe Headroom
-243.5 GiB
856% utilization
Est. Decode Throughput
~2.8 tok/s
35B active params
Est. Prefill Throughput
~1374 tok/s
4K Prompt TTFT: ~2980 ms
Est. Cost / 1M Tokens
$1186.51
Sparse MoE + GQA · Apache-2.0

Recommended Hardware for Current Configuration

Best Single GPU
Multi-GPU Required
—
Best Value / Used GPU
2x B200 180GB
360GB · ~$80,000
Apple Unified Memory
Mac Studio M3 Ultra 512GB
~$9,500
Cloud From
RunPod · $11.96 / hr
2x B200 180GB

Production Launch Commands

llama.cpp (GGUF)
llama-server -hf unsloth/Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --ctx-size 8192 -ngl 999 --flash-attn
vLLM
vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B-Instruct \
  --max-model-len 8192 --gpu-memory-utilization 0.92
Live Token Speed Simulator (TTFT ~2980ms · ~2.8 tok/s)
[Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B · 273.9 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
~1.7 months
Est. local power: $12.24 / mo
Provider Recommended Instance Total VRAM Hourly Rate Monthly at Selected Hours Billing Mode Deploy
RunPod 2x B200 180GB (Community Cloud) 360 GB $11.96 / hr $1454.34 / mo Per-second Deploy GPU ↗
Vast.ai 2x B200 180GB (Verified Host) 360 GB $15.00 / hr $1824.49 / 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) — Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B

QLoRA (4b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
277.43 GiB
Model Weights: 271.39 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 4.9 GiB · Act: 1.14 GiB
Recommended GPU: 2x B200 180GB (360GB)
LoRA (16b) Exceeds Available GPU Memory
903.29 GiB
Model Weights: 894.07 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 7.7 GiB · Act: 1.52 GiB
Recommended GPU: 8x H200 141GB SXM (1128GB)
Full BF16 Exceeds Available GPU Memory
3668.38 GiB
Model Weights: 894.07 GiB · Gradients + Optimizer: 2771.62 GiB · Act: 2.69 GiB
Recommended GPU: Multi-GPU Required

Engineering Sizing Notes & Optimization Playbook

Quick Hardware Verdict

A single RTX 5090 D (32GB) cannot hold 4-bit Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B (273.9 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

Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B uses Sparse MoE + GQA (480B total, 35B active per token). Moving from 8K to 32K context expands FP16 KV cache from 1.94 GiB to 7.75 GiB; enabling 8-bit KV cache (llama.cpp -ctk q8_0 -ctv q8_0 or vLLM --kv-cache-dtype fp8) saves 3.87 GiB at 32K (reducing total VRAM to 275.84 GiB).

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

Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B VRAM scaling from 4K to 128K context (4K: 272.92 GiB, 8K: 273.9 GiB, 32K: 279.71 GiB, 128K: 302.96 GiB) 4K 272.92 GiB (KV 0.97 GiB) 8K 273.9 GiB (KV 1.94 GiB) 32K 279.71 GiB (KV 7.75 GiB) 128K 302.96 GiB (KV 31 GiB) RTX 5090 D (32GB)
Model weights remain constant while attention KV cache grows with context length and batch size.

Quantization Precision & Memory Matrix — Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B @ 8K

Quantization Format Weights (GiB) KV Cache Total VRAM (GiB) Decode Speed Compatibility (RTX 5090 D) Recommended GPU Data Source
Native Weights (BF16 / FP8 / MXFP4 — Lossless) (BF16) 894.07 GiB 1.94 GiB 896.58 GiB (962.7 GB) ~0.8 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Official checkpoint size
FP8 / GGUF Q8_0 (8-bit — Near-Lossless) (Q8_0) 474.97 GiB 1.94 GiB 477.48 GiB (512.69 GB) ~1.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF Q6_K (6-bit — High Precision) (Q6_K) 366.57 GiB 1.94 GiB 369.08 GiB (396.3 GB) ~2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF Q5_K_M (5-bit — Balanced) (Q5_K_M) 318.14 GiB 1.94 GiB 320.65 GiB (344.3 GB) ~2.3 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) 271.39 GiB 1.94 GiB 273.9 GiB (294.1 GB) ~2.8 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Multi-GPU Required Config-derived formula
GGUF IQ4_XS (4.25-bit — Compact) (IQ4_XS) 237.76 GiB 1.94 GiB 240.27 GiB (257.99 GB) ~3.2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI355X 288GB (288GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF Q3_K_M (3-bit — Low VRAM) (Q3_K_M) 218.73 GiB 1.94 GiB 221.24 GiB (237.55 GB) ~3.5 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI325X 256GB (256GB) Config-derived formula
GGUF UD-Q2_K_XL (2-bit — Extreme MoE) (UD-Q2_K_XL) 154.05 GiB 1.94 GiB 156.56 GiB (168.11 GB) ~5.2 tok/s Exceeds Available GPU Memory Instinct MI300X 192GB (192GB) Config-derived formula

Technical Specifications & FAQ

Does Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B fit on RTX 5090 D (32GB)?

In 4-bit (Q4_K_M) at 8,192 context, Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B requires 273.9 GiB total GPU memory (271.39 GiB weights + 1.94 GiB KV cache + 0.57 GiB runtime buffers) against 30.4 GiB usable on RTX 5090 D, delivering ~2.8 tok/s decode.

How much VRAM does Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B need at 32K context?

At 32,768 context tokens, Qwen3 Coder 480B-A35B (Sparse MoE + GQA) allocates 7.75 GiB for KV cache and state, bringing total 4-bit VRAM to 279.71 GiB (300.34 GB decimal).

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