Snowflake Arctic Instruct — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
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Snowflake Arctic Instruct is a 478.6B-parameter open language model from Snowflake. It supports a context window of up to 4,096 tokens. At BF16 it needs about 957.76 GB of VRAM — see which GPUs and Macs can run it below.
36.2K downloads
361 likesSpecifications
- Publisher
- Snowflake
- Parameters
- 478.6B
- Architecture
- ArcticForCausalLM
- Context Length
- 4,096 tokens
- Vocabulary Size
- 32,000
- Release Date
- 2024-05-21
- License
- Apache 2.0
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HuggingFace
How Much VRAM Does Snowflake Arctic Instruct Need?
Select a quantization to see compatible GPUs below.
| Quantization | Bits | VRAM | + Context | File Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF16 | 16.00 | 957.8 GB | 958.1 GB | 957.17 GB | Brain floating point 16 — preferred for training |
Which GPUs Can Run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?
BF16 · 957.8 GBSnowflake Arctic Instruct (BF16) requires 957.8 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 1246+ GB is recommended. Using the full 4K context window can add up to 0.3 GB, bringing total usage to 958.1 GB. No single GPU has enough memory — multi-GPU or cluster setups are needed.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- How much VRAM does Snowflake Arctic Instruct need?
Snowflake Arctic Instruct requires 957.8 GB of VRAM at BF16.
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 478.6B × 16 bits ÷ 8 = 957.2 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 0.6 GB (at 2K context + ~0.3 GB framework)
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 0.9 GB (at full 4K context)
VRAM usage by quantization
BF16957.8 GBBF16 + full context958.1 GB- Can NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?
No — Snowflake Arctic Instruct requires at least 957.8 GB at BF16, which exceeds the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090's 32 GB of VRAM.
- Can I run Snowflake Arctic Instruct on a Mac?
Snowflake Arctic Instruct requires at least 957.8 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 Snowflake Arctic Instruct locally?
Yes — Snowflake Arctic Instruct can run locally on consumer hardware. At BF16 quantization it needs 957.8 GB of VRAM. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
- What's the download size of Snowflake Arctic Instruct?
At BF16, the download is about 957.17 GB.
- Which GPUs can run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?
No single consumer GPU has enough VRAM to run Snowflake Arctic Instruct at BF16 (957.8 GB). Multi-GPU or professional hardware is required.
- Which devices can run Snowflake Arctic Instruct?
Snowflake Arctic Instruct requires at least 957.8 GB at BF16, which exceeds the unified memory of most consumer devices. A high-memory Mac Studio, Mac Pro, or multi-GPU desktop setup is recommended.