Falcon 40B Instruct on NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip

Can the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip run Falcon 40B Instruct?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At F16 it needs about 97.1 GB of 252 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 48.9 tok/s.

Best quant: F16
Generation speed: 48.9 tok/s
Prompt processing: 1,378 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.7 s
Largest safe context: 2K

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

On Windows

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.

ollama run falcon:40b

LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.
llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.

On Linux

Ollama

Command line + local API · runs on llama.cpp (ggml), MLX (Apple silicon, preview)

One command with Ollama’s own build of this model.
Serves an OpenAI-compatible API that other apps and coding tools can use.

ollama run falcon:40b

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.
LM Studio Point-and-click: search, download and chat in one window.

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 Falcon 40B Instruct

Quickest · Ollama

One command downloads a ready-to-run version and starts a chat.

Get Ollama at ollama.com/download (opens in a new tab) · model page (opens in a new tab)

ollama run falcon:40b

Quantized files · GGUF

Works in LM Studio, llama.cpp, Jan and Ollama. No sign-in needed.

huggingface.co/mradermacher/falcon-40b-instruct-i1-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/mradermacher/falcon-40b-instruct-i1-GGUF

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/tiiuae/falcon-40b-instruct (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

Links checked 2 days ago against Hugging Face, Ollama and GitHub.

How it’s rated

Quality 16Basic quality (D) · 16 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 56/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.: How capable the model itself is at F16, 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.	7.2 / 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.	8.9 / 15
Match score	56.1 / 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`	30.2 GB	252 GB	342 tok/s	Runs great	11Basic quality (D) · 11 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 47/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	33.9 GB	252 GB	270 tok/s	Runs great	13Basic quality (D) · 13 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 49/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	38.9 GB	252 GB	209 tok/s	Runs great	15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 50/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	43.1 GB	252 GB	172 tok/s	Runs great	15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 50/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	47.7 GB	252 GB	145 tok/s	Runs great	15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 51/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	57.8 GB	252 GB	106 tok/s	Runs great	16Basic quality (D) · 16 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 52/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF files (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	97.1 GB	252 GB	48.9 tok/s	Runs great	16Basic quality (D) · 16 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 56/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	Original weights (opens in a new tab)

Memory figures assume 2K of context. Longer conversations or documents grow the KV cache.

Other hardware that runs it

13Basic quality (D) · 13 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 61/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q3_K_M · 68.0 tok/s · Runs great
11Basic quality (D) · 11 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Q2_K · 45.1 tok/s · Runs great
11Basic quality (D) · 11 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Q2_K · 48.6 tok/s · Runs great
11Basic quality (D) · 11 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 60/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q2_K · 39.9 tok/s · Runs great
15Basic quality (D) · 15 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 55/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Q5_K_M · 43.5 tok/s · Runs great
11Basic quality (D) · 11 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 51/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (64 GB) Q2_K · 22.7 tok/s · Runs well

Quick answers

How much memory does Falcon 40B Instruct need on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB?

At F16 it needs about 97.1 GB. The NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB has 252 GB usable.

How fast is Falcon 40B Instruct on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB?

About 48.9 tok/s at F16, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Falcon 40B Instruct should I use on the NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip 252GB?

F16. 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.