Can Yi 1.5 9B Chat run on NVIDIA L40 48GB?

YES — Runs Great

C47Usable

Estimated from fit model

Yi 1.5 9B Chat needs ~12.5 GB VRAM. NVIDIA L40 48GB has 48.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~123 tok/s.

Runtime: OllamaCapacity: RoomyBandwidth: HighStack: BasicBottleneck: Balanced

Operating mode

Choose the run profile you care about

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.

Capabilities:

Select quantization to explore

Q4_K_M (Medium quality) — 12.5 GB, 122.8 tok/s, Runs well

12.5 GB required48.0 GB available

26% VRAM used

Fit status

Runs well

Decode

122.8 tok/s

TTFT

1577 ms

Safe context

554K

Memory

12.5 GB / 48.0 GB

Memory breakdown

Weights5.5 GB

KV Cache1.1 GB

Runtime1.2 GB

Headroom4.8 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsYi 1.5 9B Chat on NVIDIA L40 48GB
1st promptCold start — includes initialization
>What is local AI inference?
Local AI inference means running an AI language model directly on your own hardware — your laptop, desktop, or server — instead of sending requests to a remote cloud API.

When you run inference locally the model weights are loaded into your GPU or unified memory. Each token you generate requires reading those weights from memory, so memory bandwidth is the main bottleneck for decode speed.

Key benefits of running locally:
  - Full privacy: your prompts never leave your machine
  - No per-token cost or rate limits
  - Works offline once the model is downloaded
  - Latency depends only on your hardware
2nd promptWarm — model ready, no init overhead
>How much VRAM do I need?
It depends on the model size and quantization level. A rough rule of thumb:

  Model size     Q4 (4-bit)    Q8 (8-bit)    FP16
  7B params      ~4.3 GB       ~7.5 GB       ~14 GB
  13B params     ~7.9 GB       ~13.9 GB      ~26 GB
  70B params     ~42.7 GB      ~74.9 GB      ~140 GB

Most people use 4-bit quantization (Q4_K_M) which gives 90-95% of full quality at a fraction of the memory. A 24 GB GPU can comfortably run most 7B-13B models.
Estimated: 122.8 tok/s decode · 1.6s TTFT (warm) · 307 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

This setup is broadly balanced for this model.

No major red flags

This recommendation has enough memory headroom and acceptable estimated speed for the selected workload.

Best improvement path

Performance by workload

Workload	Grade	Fit	Decode	TTFT	Context
Chat	C	Runs well	122.8 tok/s	860 ms	554K
Coding	C	Runs well	122.8 tok/s	1577 ms	554K
Agentic Coding	C	Runs well	122.8 tok/s	2294 ms	554K
Reasoning	C	Runs well	122.8 tok/s	1864 ms	554K
RAG	C	Runs well	122.8 tok/s	2868 ms	554K

Quantization options

How Yi 1.5 9B Chat (9B params) fits at each quantization level on NVIDIA L40 48GB (48.0 GB usable).

Quant	Bits	VRAM	Quality	Fit
Q2_K	2	3.5 GB	Low	C41
Q3_K_S	3	4.4 GB	Low	C41
NVFP4	4

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Yi 1.5 9B Chat on your machine.

Run

lms load hf-bartowski--yi-1-5-9b-chat-gguf && lms server start

Upgrade options

Hardware that runs Yi 1.5 9B Chat well

Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96GBBudget pick

96 GB Unified (+48)

Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.101.4 tok/s decode

Adds memory headroom for longer context windows and future model growth.

~$3,999 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

Can NVIDIA L40 48GB run Yi 1.5 9B Chat?

Yes, NVIDIA L40 48GB can run Yi 1.5 9B Chat with a C grade (Runs well). Expected decode speed: 122.8 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Yi 1.5 9B Chat need?

Yi 1.5 9B Chat (9B parameters) requires approximately 12.5 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Yi 1.5 9B Chat?

The recommended quantization for Yi 1.5 9B Chat is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Yi 1.5 9B Chat run at on NVIDIA L40 48GB?

On NVIDIA L40 48GB, Yi 1.5 9B Chat achieves approximately 122.8 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 1577ms using Q4_K_M quantization.

Can NVIDIA L40 48GB run Yi 1.5 9B Chat for coding?

For coding workloads, Yi 1.5 9B Chat on NVIDIA L40 48GB receives a C grade with 122.8 tok/s and 554K context.

What context window can Yi 1.5 9B Chat use on NVIDIA L40 48GB?

On NVIDIA L40 48GB, Yi 1.5 9B Chat can safely use up to 554K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is —, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

See all results for NVIDIA L40 48GB See all hardware for Yi 1.5 9B Chat

Embed this result▼

Paste this snippet into any page to show a live fit card.

<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/hf-bartowski--yi-1-5-9b-chat-gguf-on-l40-48gb" width="400" height="180" frameborder="0" style="border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden;" title="Will It Run AI — fit result"></iframe>

Preview: