Apertus v1.5 70B on NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip

Can the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip run Apertus v1.5 70B?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 92.2 GB of 252 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 61.6 tok/s.

Best quant: Q8_0
Generation speed: 61.6 tok/s
Prompt processing: 800 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 1.3 s
Largest safe context: 256K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip

On Windows

vLLM

Inference server · runs on vLLM

The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
On Windows it runs through WSL2.

vllm serve swiss-ai/Apertus-v1.5-70B

SGLang The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
Docker Model Runner Handy if you already work in Docker.

On Linux

vLLM

Inference server · runs on vLLM

The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.

vllm serve swiss-ai/Apertus-v1.5-70B

SGLang The full model fits in GPU memory at 8-bit, so it can batch many requests: best for serving a team or an app.
Docker Model Runner Handy if you already work in Docker.

How we choose: the files published for this model, your operating system and GPU, whether it fits fully in memory, and published speed tests (MLX vs llama.cpp on Apple silicon, vLLM vs llama.cpp vs Ollama on NVIDIA). Details.

Download Apertus v1.5 70B

Original weights · Hugging Face

Full-precision files from Swiss AI, for fine-tuning, vLLM, Transformers.

huggingface.co/swiss-ai/Apertus-v1.5-70B (opens in a new tab)

Free Hugging Face account needed: accept the license on the model page and the download starts right away.

Links checked 3 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at Q8_0, from its editorial quality tier scaled by the quantization or precision. It’s the same on any hardware that runs this variant. Scale: A+ 85+ · A 70+ · B 55+ · C 40+ · D under 40.
Runs Runs great: How well it runs on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip: speed, capped by how well it fits in memory. Runs great: 30+ tokens/s (or near the image, video or decision speed target) · Runs well: 10+ tokens/s · Slow: 3+ tokens/s · Very slow: under 3 · Won’t run: doesn’t fit even with offload. A tight fit or RAM offload caps it at Runs well; heavy offload caps it at Slow.

Match score

To order lists, each result also gets a match score out of 100 from four parts. It favors the most capable model that still runs well.

Model qualityEditorial quality tier of the model, scaled by the quantization or precision used.	29.7 / 45
Memory fitFull marks when everything sits in GPU memory; fewer when part spills to system RAM.	25.0 / 25
SpeedGeneration speed against a 40 tokens/s target for LLMs, or render time against a target for image and video.	15.0 / 15
Memory useRewards using the memory you have, so a bigger, better variant beats a tiny one that leaves most memory idle.	8.4 / 15
Match score	78.1 / 100

The match score orders results; it is not shown as a grade. Quality and Runs are the two ratings in the tables.

Every quantization on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	44.7 GB	252 GB	199 tok/s	Runs great	46Fair quality (C) · 46 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 64/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	51.2 GB	252 GB	156 tok/s	Runs great	55Good quality (B) · 55 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	59.8 GB	252 GB	121 tok/s	Runs great	62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 73/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	67.0 GB	252 GB	100.0 tok/s	Runs great	64Good quality (B) · 64 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 74/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	74.9 GB	252 GB	84.0 tok/s	Runs great	65Good quality (B) · 65 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 76/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	92.2 GB	252 GB	61.6 tok/s	Runs great	66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	All files (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	160 GB	252 GB	28.4 tok/s	Runs well	66Good quality (B) · 66 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 81/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 8K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 78/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q4_K_M · 30.5 tok/s · Runs great
55Good quality (B) · 55 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 71/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (64 GB) Q3_K_M · 10.4 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)
62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 70/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M2 Ultra (192 GB) Q4_K_M · 11.7 tok/s · Runs well
62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M3 Ultra (256 GB) Q4_K_M · 12.0 tok/s · Runs well
55Good quality (B) · 55 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 68/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (128 GB) Q3_K_M · 10.4 tok/s · Runs well
62Good quality (B) · 62 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 66/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M3 Ultra (512 GB) Q4_K_M · 12.0 tok/s · Runs well

Quick answers

How much memory does Apertus v1.5 70B need on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 92.2 GB. The NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB has 252 GB usable.

How fast is Apertus v1.5 70B on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB?

About 61.6 tok/s at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Apertus v1.5 70B should I use on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB?

Q8_0. Of the versions that fit, it is the one that runs best; when two run equally well, the check prefers the higher-rated one.

Estimates come from published hardware specs and our open formulas, not from running the model on your machine. Real speed varies with runtime, drivers and settings. Numbers marked “Measured” come from a linked benchmark.