The best GPU for running Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE) (2026)
Ranked from live rental prices and computed VRAM fit, not opinion. Every card is judged at Q4_K_M — the quantisation most people actually run — at 8k context, so it's a fair comparison. A card that can't fit Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)at that quality isn't listed, because it could only run a crushed version.
Best value
NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition
Best throughput per dollar among cards that fit.
Cheapest that runs it
NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition
Lowest hourly rental that fits it — $0.271/hr, Q4_K_M.
No compromise
—
Most headroom and highest throughput.
Every card that runs it, ranked
Best quantisation each card fits at 8k context, with the cheapest live rental and a bandwidth-derived throughput estimate. Sorted by tokens/sec per dollar.
| GPU | VRAM | VRAM used | ~tok/s | Cheapest rental | tok/s per $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition | 96 GB | 62 GB65% | — | $0.400 | — |
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition | 96 GB | 62 GB65% | — | $0.271 | — |
How this ranking is made — and its limit
Fit and throughput are computed from Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)'s own configuration with the engine behind our cost-to-run page (bits-per-weight validated to 0.7% median error). Rental prices are the cheapest live figure across the providers we track, last updated Sat, 14 Nov 2026 01:20:08 GMT.
The value column ranks renting, because that's what we can price precisely. If you're buyinga card, the fit and throughput columns are exactly what you need — but we don't publish a purchase-price value ranking, because we don't have verified street prices and won't invent them. For the buy-vs-rent decision itself, see the guides below.
Tokens/sec is a bandwidth-derived estimate, not a benchmark — we don't run our own hardware tests (editorial policy).
Check it yourself
See exactly what fits, at any context length
Running Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE): common questions
How much VRAM do you need to run Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)?
Can an RTX 4090 run Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)?
Can an RTX 3090 run Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)?
Can an RTX 4060 Ti 16GB run Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)?
What's the cheapest way to run Llama 4 Scout 17B-16E (MoE)?
Before you buy
the cheapest way to run Llama 4 in the cloud: Scout on one H100, Maverick only if you must
Scout fits a single H100 from ~$1.73/hr. Maverick needs 243GB — four H100s or two H200s. Here's the cheapest cloud setup for each, dated to real prices.
Llama 4 vs Qwen3 for Local Use: The Honest Comparison
The quiet truth: for most home users, Qwen3 is the better default than Llama 4 Scout. Where each actually wins, the LMArena controversy, and the specific cases where Scout is worth it.
How much VRAM do you need?
About 0.57 GB per billion parameters at 4-bit, plus room for context: the rule behind the numbers on this page, with worked examples.
The best GPU for local AI right now
The card with enough VRAM for your model at the lowest price, budget by budget.