Question 1

How much VRAM does snowflake-arctic-instruct need?

Accepted Answer

snowflake-arctic-instruct (478.6B) requires approximately 1057.6608055114746 GB of VRAM at full precision (FP16), 528.8 GB at 8-bit quantization (Q8), and 264.4 GB at 4-bit quantization (Q4). The actual VRAM usage may be slightly higher due to KV cache and runtime overhead.

Question 2

What GPUs can run snowflake-arctic-instruct?

Accepted Answer

We currently have no compatible GPUs indexed for snowflake-arctic-instruct. This may be because the model's VRAM requirements exceed available GPUs in our database, or VRAM data hasn't been computed yet.

Question 3

What is the cheapest GPU to run snowflake-arctic-instruct?

Accepted Answer

We don't currently have cloud pricing data for GPUs compatible with snowflake-arctic-instruct. Cloud pricing data is updated regularly — check back soon.

Question 4

Can snowflake-arctic-instruct run on consumer hardware?

Accepted Answer

snowflake-arctic-instruct requires approximately 1057.6608055114746 GB of VRAM at FP16, and even with 4-bit quantization (Q4) it needs about 264.4 GB. This exceeds the 24 GB available on the highest-end consumer GPU (RTX 4090), so snowflake-arctic-instruct requires datacenter or cloud GPUs.

Question 5

What quantization options are available for snowflake-arctic-instruct?

Accepted Answer

snowflake-arctic-instruct supports the following quantization levels: FP16 (full precision): ~1057.6608055114746 GB, Q8 (8-bit): ~528.8 GB, Q6 (6-bit): ~396.6 GB, Q4 (4-bit): ~264.4 GB. Lower quantization reduces VRAM usage at the cost of some quality loss. Q8 offers a good balance between quality and memory savings, while Q4 provides maximum compression. As a Mixture of Experts (MoE) model with 128 experts (2 active), snowflake-arctic-instruct has a larger total weight size but only activates a subset of parameters per token, which can affect effective memory usage during inference.

snowflake-arctic-instruct

VRAM Requirements

Compatible GPUs

snowflake-arctic-instruct FAQ

VRAM requirements for snowflake-arctic-instruct at different quantization levels
Quantization	VRAM Required
FP16	1057.7 GB
Q8	528.8 GB
Q6	396.6 GB
Q4	264.4 GB