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llama.cpp · homogeneous 2–4 GPUs · not a PC builder
Can this model run across multiple GPUs?
Phase 8 answers memory feasibility for identical cards under llama.cpp. Default split is layer (pipeline parallel: each GPU owns a slice of layers; KV stays with those layers). This is not 2 × VRAM = pool, and it is not a complete PC build.
2× NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB
Does not fit on this configuration
- Model
- Qwen3 235B-A22B · Q4 · 8K
- Runtime / split
- llama.cpp ·
layer· calculator 1.0.0 - Single-GPU status
- DOES_NOT_FIT · required 151.2 GB vs usable 10.8 GB
- Per card advertised / usable
- 12 GB / 10.8 GB
- Aggregate advertised
- 24.0 GB — capacity, not effective model capacity
- Nominal aggregate usable
- 21.6 GB (N × advertised × 0.90)
- Effective per-GPU peak
- 76.0 GB vs usable 10.8 GB
- Per-GPU split (approx.)
- weights 69.0 GB · KV 0.7 GB · runtime 3.9 GB · safety 2.3 GB
- Why
- Even a 2K context exceeds per-GPU usable VRAM after partition and per-device reserves.
- Topology
- Requires space for 2 discrete GPUs. Exact cooler slot width is not in the RigForAI graph. layer split is pipeline parallel and can run over PCIe. KV stays with the layers on each GPU. NVLink is not treated as a 1× aggregate VRAM pool.
- Performance
- Phase 5 predictions are single-GPU. Multi-GPU tok/s is not published.
- GPU-only current cost
- $1554.00 = 2 × $777.00 at the current per-card matched price. This does not mean 2 units are in stock, and it is not a complete build cost.ASUS TUF Gaming TUF-RTX4070TI-12G-GAMING NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB GDDR6X · ASIN B0BQTNJNHL
- Formula
- per_gpu_peak = ceil(weight_bytes/N) + ceil(kv_bytes/N) + runtime_base + safety_base + weight_fractions×ceil(weight_bytes/N). Compare to usable = advertised×0.90. Not (single_gpu_required × N) and not advertised_vram × N as effective capacity.
NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB · Single-GPU can-run · Find a single GPU · Build a machine for this GPU setup
Query combinations are not indexed. Source: llama.cpp multi-GPU documentation.