Running MiniMax M3 on H200 SXM server

MiniMax M3 has 428 billion parameters. H200 SXM server offers 1,128 GB of HBM3e across 8 GPUs memory. This page puts the two side by side.

By QDNA · Published on 27 July 2026 · Updated on 15 September 2026

Short answer. MiniMax M3 fits comfortably on H200 SXM server. In FP16, its weights take about 984 GB of the 1,128 GB available, leaving 144 GB for the attention cache and concurrency.

How much memory does MiniMax M3 need?

Weights take the parameter count multiplied by the format size, plus a 15% runtime margin for activations and buffers. In FP16 the calculation reads: 428 billion parameters × 2 bytes (FP16) = 856.0 GB of weights; × 1.15 runtime margin = 984.4 GB. The attention cache sits on top: it grows with context length and with the number of concurrent requests, so it is sized case by case.

Format	Weights in memory	On this machine	What the format costs
FP16	984 GB	tight	full precision, the quality reference
FP8	492 GB	fits	negligible loss on most tasks
NVFP4	246 GB	fits	Blackwell format, native FP4 compute
Q4	295 GB	fits	block quantisation, broadly supported

Model sheet: 428 billion parameters, 23 billion active per token, 1,048,576-token context, MiniMax Community licence. About 428 billion announced, 23 active; the BF16 repository holds 427 billion elements (854 GB).

MiniMax M3 activates 23 billion parameters per token out of 428 billion. Active parameters govern speed, not footprint: every expert stays resident in memory. Confusing the two under-sizes the machine by an order of magnitude.

What is left to serve requests?

MiniMax M3 fits comfortably on H200 SXM server. In FP16, its weights take about 984 GB of the 1,128 GB available, leaving 144 GB for the attention cache and concurrency. The remaining margin decides how many concurrent requests and how much context the machine sustains. By QDNA convention a machine “fits” when the weights take at most 75% of its memory; beyond that it “barely fits” and forces a limit on context or on concurrency. The attention cache is not calculated on this page. These models’ architectures (compressed latent, linear or sparse attention, Mamba layers) share no per-token formula; it is measured on the machine, with the target context and concurrency [TO BE MEASURED].

H200 SXM server: indicative price about €453k excl. VAT, not contractual. Source: 8-GPU H200 141 GB server with two Xeon Gold 6538Y+ listed at £387,785 by CTO Servers on 2 September 2026, converted at the ECB rate of £0.857 per €1. The machine targets the GE segment.

Where else can MiniMax M3 run?

See the MiniMax M3 and H200 SXM server fact sheets.

How much memory does MiniMax M3 need?

In FP16, weights take about 984 GB including the runtime margin. The attention cache sits on top and depends on context.

Does MiniMax M3 fit on H200 SXM server?

MiniMax M3 fits comfortably on H200 SXM server. In FP16, its weights take about 984 GB of the 1,128 GB available, leaving 144 GB for the attention cache and concurrency.

Method and sources

Memory footprints are calculated, not measured: a reading on real hardware may differ depending on the engine and the exact weight format. Every figure below carries its source and the date of its last check.

MiniMax M3: 428 billion parameters, 23 billion active, 1,048,576-token context, MiniMax Community licence. Hugging Face repository (config.json, API, model card), checked on 2 September 2026. About 428 billion announced, 23 active; the BF16 repository holds 427 billion elements (854 GB).
H200 SXM server: 1,128 GB of memory; 141 GB HBM3e and 4.8 TB/s per GPU, 900 GB/s NVLink, 700 W, hence 1,128 GB for 8 GPUs. Manufacturer sheet checked on 2 September 2026.
H200 SXM server price: about €453k excl. VAT, indicative and not contractual. Source: 8-GPU H200 141 GB server with two Xeon Gold 6538Y+ listed at £387,785 by CTO Servers on 2 September 2026, converted at the ECB rate of £0.857 per €1.
Bytes per parameter: FP16 2 (16 bits per parameter, hence 2 bytes); FP8 1 (8 bits per parameter (E4M3), hence 1 byte, block scales not counted); NVFP4 0.5 (4 bits per parameter, hence 0.5 byte; 4-bit published weights weigh 0.54 to 0.56 byte per parameter with their scales (DeepSeek V4 Pro 865 GB for 1,599 billion, Kimi K3 1,561 GB for 2,780 billion)); Q4 0.6 (taken here as llama.cpp Q4_K_M, 0.6 byte per parameter including scales; Q4_K_S weighs 0.56, AWQ and GPTQ 0.55). Source: connaissance/faits.yaml, quantifications family, checked on 2026-08-31.
Runtime margin × 1.15: QDNA operating assumption, not measured: 15% above the weights for activations, buffers and fragmentation.
“Fits” threshold at 75% of memory: QDNA assumption, not measured, which keeps the remaining quarter for the attention cache and concurrency.