Gemma 2 27B needs ~28.1 GB VRAM. Tesla P40 24GB has 24.0 GB. With Q3_K_S quantization, expect ~8 tok/s.
Operating mode
Interactive favors responsiveness, while light API and scale-out lean harder on serving readiness. The fit stays the same, but the recommendation lens changes.
Current mode
Balanced
Balanced for general local use. Keeps the ranking neutral across personal and serving workflows.
Select quantization to explore
7.3 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization
Fit status
Too heavy
Decode
5.3 tok/s
TTFT
36542 ms
Safe context
6K
Memory
31.3 GB / 24.0 GB
Offload
20%
It fits through host-memory offload, and offload is the main reason performance drops.
CPU or host-memory offload is active
About 10% of the working set spills out of accelerator memory, which usually hurts latency and sustained decode throughput.
Very little memory headroom
You can run the model, but there is not much room left for longer context, bigger batches, extra apps, or future model updates.
Older PCIe generation
PCIe 3.0 is workable, but it compounds the penalty when you offload heavily or try to scale across multiple cards.
Remove offload with more accelerator memory
Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.
Buy headroom, not only minimum fit
A slightly larger memory tier gives you safer context growth and makes the recommendation more future-proof.
Increase host RAM if you keep offloading
This setup may need roughly 1.9 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.
| Workload | Grade | Fit | Decode | TTFT | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chat | B | Runs with offload (needs ~1.1 GB host RAM) | 8.2 tok/s | 12912 ms | 6K |
| Coding | F | Too heavy | 5.0 tok/s | 38369 ms | 6K |
| Agentic Coding | F | Too heavy | 2.7 tok/s | 104215 ms | 6K |
| Reasoning | F | Too heavy | 5.3 tok/s | 43186 ms | 6K |
| RAG | F | Too heavy | 2.7 tok/s | 130268 ms | 6K |
How Gemma 2 27B (27B params) fits at each quantization level on Tesla P40 24GB (24.0 GB usable).
| Quant | Bits | VRAM | Quality | Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Q2_K | 2 | 10.5 GB | Low | B69 |
Q3_K_S | 3 | 13.2 GB | Low | B70 |
NVFP4 | 4 |
Copy-paste commands to run Gemma 2 27B on your machine.
Run
ollama run gemma2:27bUpgrade options
RTX 5090 32GBBudget pickMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$1,999 MSRP
RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell 32GBBest valueMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$2,499 MSRP
RTX 5000 Ada 32GBNVIDIA upgradeMakes the model fit on the accelerator instead of staying completely out of reach.
Removes host-memory offload, which is usually the single biggest latency and throughput win.
~$4,000 MSRP
Yes, Tesla P40 24GB can run Gemma 2 27B at Q3_K_S quantization (Very compromised (needs ~1.9 GB host RAM)). The recommended Q4_K_M requires 31.3 GB which exceeds available memory, but at Q3_K_S it needs only 28.1 GB. Expected decode speed: 7.8 tok/s.
Gemma 2 27B (27B parameters) requires approximately 31.3 GB at Q4_K_M quantization. On Tesla P40 24GB, it fits at Q3_K_S using 28.1 GB.
The recommended quantization is Q4_K_M, but on Tesla P40 24GB the best fitting quantization is Q3_K_S, which uses 28.1 GB.
On Tesla P40 24GB, Gemma 2 27B achieves approximately 7.8 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 24829ms using Q3_K_S quantization.
For coding workloads, Gemma 2 27B on Tesla P40 24GB receives a F grade with 5.0 tok/s and 6K context.
On Tesla P40 24GB, Gemma 2 27B can safely use up to 8K tokens of context at Q3_K_S quantization. The model's official context limit is 8K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.
Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.
<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/gemma-2-27b-on-tesla-p40-24gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>
Preview:
15.1 GB |
| Medium |
| B69 |
Q4_K_MBest for your GPU | 4 | 16.5 GB | Medium | B69 |
Q5_K_M | 5 | 19.4 GB | High | F0 |
Q6_K | 6 | 22.1 GB | High | F0 |
Q8_0 | 8 | 28.9 GB | Very High | F0 |
F16 | 16 | 55.4 GB | Maximum | F0 |
Remove offload with more accelerator memory. Prioritize a GPU or unified-memory tier that fits the whole model natively. Removing offload usually helps more than small compute gains.