Falcon 180B — Hardware Requirements & GPU Compatibility
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173 downloads
1.1K likesSpecifications
- Publisher
- TII UAE
- Family
- Falcon
- Parameters
- 180B
- Release Date
- 2023-09-06
- License
- unknown
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HuggingFace
How Much VRAM Does Falcon 180B Need?
Select a quantization to see compatible GPUs below.
| Quantization | Bits | VRAM | + Context | File Size | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF16 | 16.00 | 396 GB | — | 360.00 GB | Brain floating point 16 — preferred for training |
Which GPUs Can Run Falcon 180B?
BF16 · 396 GBFalcon 180B (BF16) requires 396 GB of VRAM to load the model weights. For comfortable inference with headroom for KV cache and system overhead, 515+ GB is recommended. No single GPU has enough memory — multi-GPU or cluster setups are needed.
Which Devices Can Run Falcon 180B?
BF16 · 396 GB2 devices with unified memory can run Falcon 180B, including NVIDIA DGX H100, NVIDIA DGX A100 640GB.
Runs great
— Plenty of headroomRelated Models
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much VRAM does Falcon 180B need?
Falcon 180B requires 396 GB of VRAM at BF16.
VRAM = Weights + KV Cache + Overhead
Weights = 180B × 16 bits ÷ 8 = 360 GB
KV Cache + Overhead ≈ 36 GB (at 2K context + ~0.3 GB framework)
VRAM usage by quantization
BF16396.0 GB- Can NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 run Falcon 180B?
No — Falcon 180B requires at least 396 GB at BF16, which exceeds the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090's 32 GB of VRAM.
- Can I run Falcon 180B on a Mac?
Falcon 180B requires at least 396 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 Falcon 180B locally?
Yes — Falcon 180B can run locally on consumer hardware. At BF16 quantization it needs 396 GB of VRAM. Popular tools include Ollama, LM Studio, and llama.cpp.
- What's the download size of Falcon 180B?
At BF16, the download is about 360.00 GB.
- Which GPUs can run Falcon 180B?
No single consumer GPU has enough VRAM to run Falcon 180B at BF16 (396 GB). Multi-GPU or professional hardware is required.
- Which devices can run Falcon 180B?
2 devices with unified memory can run Falcon 180B at BF16 (396 GB), including NVIDIA DGX A100 640GB, NVIDIA DGX H100. Apple Silicon Macs use unified memory shared between CPU and GPU, making them well-suited for local LLM inference.