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[ARTICLE · art-67608] src=tokenstead.ai ↗ pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Mistral Nemo 12B - cheapest: DekaLLM $0.02/M input

DekaLLM offers the cheapest inference for Mistral Nemo 12B at $0.02 per million input tokens, delivering 3,444 points per dollar based on a general score of 62. The 12.2-billion-parameter model supports a 128k context window and is released under Apache 2.0 license as of July 2024.

read4 min views1 publishedJul 21, 2026
Mistral Nemo 12B - cheapest: DekaLLM $0.02/M input
Image: Tokenstead (auto-discovered)

consumer- 12.2B

  • 128k
  • apache 2.0
  • Jul 2024

Scores #

Score per dollar #

3444 pts per $/M input

general_score (62) divided by cheapest input price

($0.02/M).
Higher is better value. [See live pricing](/models/mistral-nemo-12b/pricing).

Run it locally #

Per-quant memory needs and a static "can you run it?" reference - no rig entry required

Can you run it? - reference rigs

Rig Q4_K_M Q8_0
4x H100 80GB (320GB) fast 1009.4t/s fast 558.3t/s
4x RTX 5090 (128GB) fast 539.9t/s fast 298.6t/s
4x RTX 4090 (96GB) fast 303.7t/s fast 168.0t/s
2x RTX 5090 (64GB) fast 270.0t/s fast 149.3t/s
2x RTX 3090 (48GB) fast 141.0t/s fast 78.0t/s
Single RTX 5090 (32GB) fast 135.0t/s fast 74.7t/s
Mac Studio M4 Ultra 192GB fast 89.7t/s fast 49.6t/s
Mac Studio M4 Ultra 512GB fast 89.7t/s fast 49.6t/s
Single RTX 4090 (24GB) fast 75.9t/s fast 42.0t/s
MacBook Pro M5 Max 128GB fast 50.5t/s fast 27.9t/s
Single GTX 1080 Ti (11GB) fast 36.5t/s offload
DGX Spark 128GB unified fast 20.6t/s ok 11.4t/s
Epyc + 512GB DDR4-3200 + 2x RTX 3090 ok 15.4t/s ok 8.5t/s
Epyc + 512GB DDR4-2400 + 2x RTX 3090 ok 11.6t/s slow 6.4t/s
NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB slow 7.7t/s slow 4.3t/s

Fit tiers use the same will-it-run logic as the rig finder. For comfortable fits, the badge reflects decode speed: fast >=20 t/s, ok 8-20 t/s, slow <8 t/s. t/s is a bandwidth estimate, not a measured benchmark.

How can a 24GB GPU run a 744B model? It does not load the model into VRAM. The quantized weights (e.g. ~410GB at Q4) sit in system RAM; the GPU only holds the small shared attention and router tensors and accelerates prompt processing. Because GLM 5.2 is a Mixture-of-Experts model, each token activates only ~40B of its 744B params, so llama.cpp streams just those active experts from system RAM to the GPU each token (the -cmoe

offload path).

That makes decode speed bound by system-RAM bandwidth, not GPU bandwidth - single digits on DDR4, which is why these rigs show 3-8 t/s even though they “fit.” A bigger GPU (e.g. 2x 3090) keeps more experts resident on-card and raises tok/s; a smaller GPU still runs it but pays the bandwidth tax. A 744B dense model could not run this way - only MoE’s small-active-params trick makes it possible.

Aggressive quants (1-2 bit) trade accuracy for size - roughly 17% accuracy loss at 2-bit vs full precision, and real long-context work often needs Q5 or Q6 even when lower quants “fit.”

Formula estimates here are conservative; real tuned setups can exceed them (one HN user reports ~6 tok/s on a 512GB DDR4 + 2x 3090 rig).

Download options #

Or run it in the cloud #

Live per-provider pricing, throughput and uptime - refreshed about 1 hour ago via OpenRouter. Click a column to sort.

Provider Type Input $/M Output $/M Cache $/M Tok/s Latency Uptime Value
DeepInfra
API 0.02 0.03 - - - 99.95% best uptime
Mistral
API 0.15 0.15 0.015 - - 99.94%
DekaLLM
API 0.02 0.03 - - - 98.03% cheapest
Novita
avoid

API | 0.04 | 0.17 | - | - | - | 69.74% | Default order: throughput among 95%+ uptime providers, then latency; subscriptions last. Sort by any column. Subscription rows show $/mo in the Value column - per-token columns are "-". Affiliate links are marked sponsored / nofollow. Confirm current pricing on the provider's site before committing.

[Detailed API pricing page + JSON endpoint →](/models/mistral-nemo-12b/pricing)

[See who runs Mistral AI in production →](/adoption/mistral)

Inference cost over time #

Data accumulates from the first daily sync - longer ranges populate over time. Prices come from OpenRouter snapshots, not a historical API.

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