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Calculations run on this device. Scenario values are not sent anywhere — the engine is fully local.

inference calculator · free

Quantization Microscope

Slide the bit-width and watch weights shrink, decode speed rise, and quality risk creep in.

What does dropping from 16 to 4 bits actually buy?

Engine 1.0.0 · calculation
4 bit

Decode is memory-bandwidth bound, so bytes per weight ≈ speed.

4.0×decode speed headroom vs FP16
Weights at this width
35.0 GB
Weights at FP16
140.0 GB
Saved
75% smaller
Quality risk
Minor — standard serving trade

Below 4 bits, perplexity climbs fast for most checkpoints; the safe default for serving is 4–5 bit weight quantization with activations kept higher.

Method

  • Weight size scales linearly with bits; decode speed headroom approximates 16/bits under bandwidth-bound decoding.
  • Quality-risk bands are heuristic (≥6 negligible, 4–5 standard, 3 evaluate, 2 severe) and point to real evals.