Will It Run AI

Can Yi 34B Chat run on Tesla P40 24GB?

BARELY — Tight on Memory

D37Poor
Estimated from fit model

Yi 34B Chat needs ~27.7 GB VRAM. Tesla P40 24GB has 24.0 GB. With Q4_K_M quantization, expect ~6 tok/s.

Runtime: llama.cppCapacity: OffloadBandwidth: LowStack: StandardBottleneck: Host offload
Share:

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) — 27.7 GB, 5.7 tok/s, Very compromised (needs ~2.8 GB host RAM)
27.7 GB required24.0 GB available
115% VRAM needed

3.7 GB over capacity — needs offload or smaller quantization

Fit status

Very compromised (needs ~2.8 GB host RAM)

Decode

5.7 tok/s

TTFT

34034 ms

Safe context

4K

Memory

27.7 GB / 24.0 GB

Offload

10%

Memory breakdown

Weights20.7 GB
KV Cache3.7 GB
Runtime0.9 GB
Headroom2.4 GB

See how fast it feels

See how fast it feelsYi 34B Chat on Tesla P40 24GB
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: 5.7 tok/s decode · 34.0s TTFT (warm) · 14 tok/s prefill

What limits this setup

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.

Best improvement path

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 2.8 GB of extra host RAM just for the offloaded portion, before OS and other tools.

Performance by workload

WorkloadGradeFitDecodeTTFTContext
ChatDRuns with offload (needs ~1.5 GB host RAM)6.6 tok/s15975 ms4K
CodingDVery compromised (needs ~2.8 GB host RAM)5.7 tok/s34034 ms4K
Agentic CodingFToo heavy4.3 tok/s65021 ms4K
ReasoningDVery compromised (needs ~2.8 GB host RAM)5.7 tok/s40222 ms4K
RAGFToo heavy4.3 tok/s81276 ms4K

Quantization options

How Yi 34B Chat (34B params) fits at each quantization level on Tesla P40 24GB (24.0 GB usable).

QuantBitsVRAMQualityFit
Q2_K
2
13.3 GB
LowC52
Q3_K_SBest for your GPU
3
16.7 GB
LowC51
NVFP4
4
19.0 GB
MediumF0
Q4_K_M
4
20.7 GB
MediumF0
Q5_K_M
5
24.5 GB
HighF0
Q6_K
6
27.9 GB
HighF0
Q8_0
8
36.4 GB
Very HighF0
F16
16
69.7 GB
MaximumF0

Get started

Copy-paste commands to run Yi 34B Chat on your machine.

Run

lms load Yi-34B-Chat && lms server start

Opciones de mejora

Hardware que ejecuta bien Yi 34B Chat

NVIDIARTX 5090 32GBOpción económica
32 GB VRAM (+8)1792 GB/s (+1446)
C
Elimina el offload a memoria del sistema, que suele ser la mayor mejora individual en latencia y throughput.40.7 tok/s decodificación

Elimina el offload a memoria del sistema, que suele ser la mayor mejora individual en latencia y throughput.

Sube la velocidad estimada de decodificación alrededor de un 614%.

~$1,999 MSRP

NVIDIARTX PRO 4500 Blackwell 32GBMejor relación calidad-precio
32 GB VRAM (+8)896 GB/s (+550)
C
Elimina el offload a memoria del sistema, que suele ser la mayor mejora individual en latencia y throughput.39.4 tok/s decodificación

Elimina el offload a memoria del sistema, que suele ser la mayor mejora individual en latencia y throughput.

Sube la velocidad estimada de decodificación alrededor de un 591%.

~$2,499 MSRP

NVIDIARTX 5000 Ada 32GBMejora NVIDIA
32 GB VRAM (+8)576 GB/s (+230)
C
Elimina el offload a memoria del sistema, que suele ser la mayor mejora individual en latencia y throughput.24.1 tok/s decodificación

Elimina el offload a memoria del sistema, que suele ser la mayor mejora individual en latencia y throughput.

Sube la velocidad estimada de decodificación alrededor de un 323%.

~$4,000 MSRP

Frequently asked questions

Can Tesla P40 24GB run Yi 34B Chat?

Yes, Tesla P40 24GB can run Yi 34B Chat with a D grade (Very compromised (needs ~2.8 GB host RAM)). Expected decode speed: 5.7 tok/s.

How much VRAM does Yi 34B Chat need?

Yi 34B Chat (34B parameters) requires approximately 27.7 GB of memory with Q4_K_M quantization.

What is the best quantization for Yi 34B Chat?

The recommended quantization for Yi 34B Chat is Q4_K_M, which balances quality and memory efficiency.

What speed will Yi 34B Chat run at on Tesla P40 24GB?

On Tesla P40 24GB, Yi 34B Chat achieves approximately 5.7 tokens per second decode speed with a time-to-first-token of 34034ms using Q4_K_M quantization.

Can Tesla P40 24GB run Yi 34B Chat for coding?

For coding workloads, Yi 34B Chat on Tesla P40 24GB receives a D grade with 5.7 tok/s and 4K context.

What context window can Yi 34B Chat use on Tesla P40 24GB?

On Tesla P40 24GB, Yi 34B Chat can safely use up to 4K tokens of context. The model's official context limit is 200K, but available memory constrains the safe maximum.

What should I upgrade first if Yi 34B Chat feels slow on Tesla P40 24GB?

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.

See all results for Tesla P40 24GBSee all hardware for Yi 34B Chat
Embed this result▼

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

<iframe src="https://willitrunai.com/embed/yi-34b-chat-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: