Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
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Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview is a 32.2B-parameter open language model from IBM in the Granite family. It supports a context window of up to 131,072 tokens. At BF16 it needs about 65.32 GB of VRAM — see which GPUs and Macs can run it below.
339 downloads
25 likesSpecifications
- Publisher
- IBM
- Family
- Granite
- Parameters
- 32.2B
- Architecture
- GraniteSwitchForCausalLM
- Context Length
- 131,072 tokens
- Vocabulary Size
- 100,364
- Release Date
- 2026-05-01
- License
- Apache 2.0
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HuggingFace
How Much VRAM Does Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview Need?
Select a quantization to see compatible GPUs below.
| Quantization | Bits | VRAM | + Context | File Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF16est. | 16.00 | 65.3 GB | 99.7 GB | 64.48 GB | Brain floating point 16 — preferred for training |
est.= calculated VRAM estimate; no published GGUF file found for that quantization yet. Other rows are verified against real community uploads.
Which GPUs Can Run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
BF16 · 65.3 GBGranite Switch 4.1 30B Preview (BF16) requires 65.3 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 85+ GB is recommended. Using the full 131K context window can add up to 34.4 GB, bringing total usage to 99.7 GB. No single GPU has enough memory — multi-GPU or cluster setups are needed.
Which Devices Can Run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
BF16 · 65.3 GB19 devices with unified memory can run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview, including NVIDIA DGX H100, NVIDIA DGX A100 640GB, Mac Studio (M3 Ultra, 96GB).
Runs great
— Plenty of headroom
Decent
— Enough memory, may be tightRelated Models
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much VRAM does Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview need?
Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview requires 65.3 GB of VRAM at BF16. Full 131K context adds up to 34.4 GB (99.7 GB total).
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 32.2B × 16 bits ÷ 8 = 64.5 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 0.8 GB (at 2K context + ~0.3 GB framework)
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 35.2 GB (at full 131K context)
VRAM usage by quantization
BF1665.3 GBBF16 + full context99.7 GB- Can NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
No — Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview requires at least 65.3 GB at BF16, which exceeds the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090's 32 GB of VRAM.
- Can I run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview on a Mac?
Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview requires at least 65.3 GB at BF16, which exceeds the unified memory of most consumer Macs. You would need a Mac Studio or Mac Pro with a high-memory configuration.
- Can I run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview locally?
Yes — Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview can run locally on consumer hardware. At BF16 quantization it needs 65.3 GB of VRAM. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
- How fast is Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
At BF16, Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview can reach ~67 tok/s on AMD Instinct MI350X. Speed depends mainly on GPU memory bandwidth. Real-world results typically within ±20%.
tok/s = (bandwidth GB/s ÷ model GB) × efficiency
Example: NVIDIA B200 → 8000 ÷ 65.3 × 0.65 = ~80 tok/s
Estimated speed at BF16 (65.3 GB)
~80 tok/s~80 tok/s~67 tok/sReal-world results typically within ±20%. Speed depends on batch size, quantization kernel, and software stack.
- What's the download size of Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
At BF16, the download is about 64.48 GB.
- Which GPUs can run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
No single consumer GPU has enough VRAM to run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview at BF16 (65.3 GB). Multi-GPU or professional hardware is required.
- Which devices can run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview?
19 devices with unified memory can run Granite Switch 4.1 30B Preview at BF16 (65.3 GB), including ASUS Ascent GX10, Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025, Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB), Beelink GTR9 Pro (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB), Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395, 128 GB). Apple Silicon Macs use unified memory shared between CPU and GPU, making them well-suited for local LLM inference.