Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000

Can the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 run Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B?

Yes, it runs great

Runs great. At Q8_0 it needs about 36.5 GB of 48.0 GB usable, with an estimated speed of 82.4 tok/s.

Best quant: Q8_0
Generation speed: 82.4 tok/s
Prompt processing: 3,353 tok/s
First token (1K prompt): 0.3 s
Largest safe context: 256K

Best app to run it on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000

On Windows

LM Studio

Desktop app · runs on llama.cpp, MLX

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

Open Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B in LM Studio

llama.cpp Usually the first to support new model architectures.
Ollama Runs the Hugging Face GGUF with ollama run hf.co/…

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 nvidia/Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B

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

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 Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B

Recommended for the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000: Q8_0. Every other quantization has its own download link in the table below.

Quantized files · GGUF

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

Download the Q8_0 file (opens in a new tab)

huggingface.co/bartowski/nvidia_Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B-GGUF (opens in a new tab)

ollama run hf.co/bartowski/nvidia_Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B-GGUF:Q8_0

Original weights · Hugging Face

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

huggingface.co/nvidia/Nemotron-Cascade-2-30B-A3B (opens in a new tab)

No sign-in needed.

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

How it’s rated

Quality 80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (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 Quadro RTX 8000: 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.	36.0 / 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.	15.0 / 15
Match score	91.0 / 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 Quadro RTX 8000

Quant	Memory needed	Available	Speed	Runs	Quality	Download
`Q2_K`	15.7 GB	48.0 GB	175 tok/s	Runs great	56Good quality (B) · 56 of 100: how capable the model is at Q2_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 72/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q3_K_M`	18.5 GB	48.0 GB	153 tok/s	Runs great	67Good quality (B) · 67 of 100: how capable the model is at Q3_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 79/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q4_K_M`	22.3 GB	48.0 GB	131 tok/s	Runs great	76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 84/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q5_K_M`	25.5 GB	48.0 GB	116 tok/s	Runs great	77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 87/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q6_K`	28.9 GB	48.0 GB	103 tok/s	Runs great	79Great quality (A) · 79 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`Q8_0`	36.5 GB	48.0 GB	82.4 tok/s	Runs great	80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF (opens in a new tab)
`F16`	66.2 GB	48.0 GB	14.3 tok/s	Runs welloffloads to RAM	80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 69/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking.	GGUF · folder (opens in a new tab) 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

80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M1 Max (64 GB) Q8_0 · 49.8 tok/s · Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at Q8_0, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Max (64 GB) Q8_0 · 63.6 tok/s · Runs great
80Great quality (A) · 80 of 100: how capable the model is at F16, whatever it runs on. Match score 91/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell F16 · 89.6 tok/s · Runs great
79Great quality (A) · 79 of 100: how capable the model is at Q6_K, whatever it runs on. Match score 90/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. Apple M4 Pro (48 GB) Q6_K · 47.4 tok/s · Runs great
77Great quality (A) · 77 of 100: how capable the model is at Q5_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 89/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Q5_K_M · 184 tok/s · Runs great
76Great quality (A) · 76 of 100: how capable the model is at Q4_K_M, whatever it runs on. Match score 88/100 (quality, fit, speed and memory use) sets the ranking. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Q4_K_M · 147 tok/s · Runs well (tight fit)

Quick answers

How much memory does Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B need on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB?

At Q8_0 it needs about 36.5 GB. The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB has 48.0 GB usable.

How fast is Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB?

About 82.4 tok/s at Q8_0, an estimate from the hardware’s memory bandwidth and the size of the model.

Which quantization of Nemotron Cascade 2 30B-A3B should I use on the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 48GB?

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.