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Models / Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B / VRAM

How much VRAM do you need for Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B?

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Weight math from the model card, plus every measured RigBase result for Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B. Leave extra room for context (KV cache).

Quick answer: at Q4_K_M the weights are about 499.2 GB (816B params × 4.89 bits ÷ 8, llama.cpp quantize table). only about 42B parameters are active per token (MoE). the smallest-memory build with a measured result here is Apple M3 Ultra (unified) (512 GB) at 18 tok/s. Open the VRAM calculator →

Weight size by quant

QuantBits/weightWeights only
Q8_08.50867.1 GB
Q6_K6.56669.5 GB
Q5_K_M5.70581.8 GB
Q4_K_M4.89499.2 GB
Q3_K_M4.00407.6 GB
Q2_K3.16322.2 GB

Bits-per-weight for GGUF rows: llama.cpp quantize README. Parameter count: Hugging Face launch post: ~816B total, ~42B active. We advise staying at Q4 or above for chat quality — see Is Q4 good enough?.

Measured speeds for Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B

HardwareQuantEnginetok/s
4x Apple M5 Ultra (unified, Mac Studio)NVFP4, 8,192-token contextMLX, 4-node tensor parallel36.73
2x Apple M5 Ultra (unified, Mac Studio)NVFP4, 8,192-token contextMLX, 2-node tensor parallel24.99
Apple M3 Ultra (unified) · 512 GBoQ3e (3-bit), ~344 GBMLX (oMLX / mlx-lm)21
Apple M3 Ultra (unified) · 512 GBQ2_K (imatrix), ~304 GBllama.cpp18
2x Apple M5 Ultra (unified, Mac Studio)NVFP4, 8,192-token contextMLX, 2-node pipeline parallel15.74

⚡ = speculative decoding (MTP, DFlash…). Full list: best home rig for Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B.

Related

All Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B builds VRAM + KV calculator By VRAM size GGUF vs AWQ vs FP8 vs NVFP4 How much system RAM?

FAQ

How much VRAM do you need for Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B?

Weights alone are about 499.2 GB at Q4_K_M (816B × 4.89 bits ÷ 8). Add memory for the KV cache (context) and the runtime. The smallest-memory measured result in RigBase is 512 GB (Apple M3 Ultra (unified)) at 18 tok/s. Going below Q4 usually hurts quality for chat; see the Q4 guide.

What is the fastest measured speed for Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B?

4x Apple M5 Ultra (unified, Mac Studio): 36.73 tok/s plain decode (NVFP4, 8,192-token context, MLX, 4-node tensor parallel).

Does system RAM replace VRAM?

Only for overflow. When the whole model fits in GPU or unified memory, system RAM barely matters for decode speed. See the system-RAM guide.

Not enough VRAM? Rent before you buy. Run Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B on a rented 24–96 GB cloud GPU by the hour and see the real speed before spending €1,000+. Try it on Runpod
Referral link: if you sign up with Google and add $10, Runpod gives you and RigBase bonus credit (terms). It never affects our data.