Llama 4 Maverick 17B — VRAM, Speed & Local Setup

Written by Jakub Rusinowski · Last updated April 5, 2025

Model library → Llama 4 → Llama 4 Maverick 17B

The premium Llama 4 model. 128 experts with 17B active parameters. Matches GPT-4o in benchmarks. Its 400B total parameters must all be resident, which is roughly 242 GB at Q4_K_M — a multi-GPU server or a 256 GB+ unified-memory system. The 17B active count sets its speed, not its memory footprint.

Llama 4 Maverick 17B needs about 242 GB of VRAM at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache. On Apple Silicon that figure comes out of unified memory.

Specifications

Parameters400 Billion (17B active)
Context window1,000,000
ArchitectureMoE (128 experts)
ProviderMeta
LicenceLlama 4 Community
Specified atQ4_K_M
System RAM32 GB
Record updated2025-04-05

Licence

Llama Community — commercial use permitted. Weights are downloadable and commercial use is permitted, subject to the licence’s acceptable-use terms.

VRAM and Speed by Quantization

Modelled on a reference NVIDIA RTX 4090 (24 GB), at 8K context. Speed figures are ESTIMATES from the memory-bandwidth roofline described on the methodology page, not benchmarks we ran — rows marked measured come from published or reader-submitted runs. VRAM here includes the KV cache, so it reads higher than the headline figure above, which does not.

QuantWeightsVRAM neededEst. speedFit on 24 GB
Q2_K131.5 GB133.9 GB—Won't fit
Q3_K_M170.5 GB172.9 GB—Won't fit
Q4_K_M241.5 GB243.9 GB—Won't fit
Q5_K_M283.5 GB285.9 GB—Won't fit
Q6_K328.0 GB330.4 GB—Won't fit
Q8_0425.0 GB427.4 GB—Won't fit
F16800.0 GB802.4 GB—Won't fit

Want the memory numbers alone, at every quantization level and your own context length? Use the Llama 4 Maverick 17B VRAM calculator.

Buy This HardwareApple Mac Studio M3 Ultra — 512 GB VRAM · 60 W board powerDeploy in the Cloud NowRunPod

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Recommended GPU

The cheapest catalogued GPU that runs Llama 4 Maverick 17B is the Apple M3 Ultra (512 GB).

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Apple Mac Studio M3 Ultra
512 GB VRAM · 60 W board power
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How to Run Llama 4 Maverick 17B

Install Ollama, then run:

ollama run llama4:maverick

Weights on Hugging Face: meta-llama/Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct.

Best for: coding, reasoning, chat, complex tasks.

Can I Run Llama 4 Maverick 17B on My GPU?

Other Llama 4 Sizes

Llama 4 Maverick 17B — Frequently Asked Questions

How much VRAM does Llama 4 Maverick 17B need?
About 242 GB at Q4_K_M — quantized weights plus framework overhead, before any KV cache. The cache grows with context length and is added on top; the table above folds it in. Apple Silicon counts unified memory toward the same figure.
Does Llama 4 Maverick 17B run on an RTX 4090 (24 GB)?
No. Llama 4 Maverick 17B needs about 242 GB at Q4_K_M, more than a single RTX 4090's 24 GB. It needs a larger card, several GPUs, or Apple Silicon with enough unified memory — or it runs with part of the weights offloaded to system RAM, which is much slower.
How do I run Llama 4 Maverick 17B locally?
Install Ollama and run `ollama run llama4:maverick`. That pulls the weights and starts a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint; after the download nothing leaves the machine.
What other sizes does Llama 4 come in?
Llama 4 Scout 17B (67 GB), Llama 4 Maverick 17B (242 GB). Every size shares the family's training and licence; the larger ones score higher and need proportionally more memory.

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