MiniMax-H3 Performance Notes

Date: 2026-08-11

Branch: dev

Hardware: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, CUDA backend, server threads=8

This check compares the normal DiT GGUF against the INT8 ConvRot DiT GGUF in server mode. Server detailed logging was disabled. Each model variant used a separate server process:

Variant	DiT file
DiT	dit.gguf
INT8 ConvRot DiT	dit_int8.gguf

Each server received one short warmup request first, then three measured requests in the same session: none, spectrum, and first_block_cache.

Prompt:

A lively four-speaker podcast roundtable in a small studio. The host, Maya, is warm and curious. The comedian, Leo, is playful and quick. The scientist, Dr. Chen, is thoughtful and calm. The producer, Sam, is dry and amused. Maya says, "Welcome back to Tiny Big Questions, where today we ask whether coffee makes us productive or just louder." Leo says, "I vote louder. My notes are mostly exclamation marks and one drawing of a croissant." Dr. Chen says, "I think the ritual matters more than the caffeine. The cup gives your brain a starting line." Sam says, "My brain missed the starting line and is currently looking for parking." The speakers laugh naturally, overlap lightly, react to each other, and continue in a friendly conversational rhythm with clear distinct voices, no music, and no background noise.

Shared measured-request options:

Option	Value
seed	20260808
height	32
width	32
num_frames	481
num_inference_steps	20
guidance_scale	1.0
return_video	false
minimax_h3.mem_saver	default true

Warmup used num_inference_steps=2, num_frames=21, and dit_acceleration=none.

Results

DiT file	Acceleration	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Peak VRAM MiB	Speedup vs dit.gguf
dit.gguf	none	12886.40	20.05	0.6427	1.56x	16513	baseline
dit_int8.gguf	none	11692.00	20.05	0.5831	1.71x	18406	9.3%
dit.gguf	spectrum	7501.48	20.05	0.3741	2.67x	16617	baseline
dit_int8.gguf	spectrum	7331.46	20.05	0.3657	2.73x	18522	2.3%
dit.gguf	first_block_cache	8270.58	20.05	0.4125	2.42x	17389	baseline
dit_int8.gguf	first_block_cache	7887.51	20.05	0.3934	2.54x	19286	4.6%

Peak VRAM was sampled with nvidia-smi during each server session. The per-row peak is estimated from the request timing interval. Whole-session peak was 17389 MiB for dit.gguf and 19286 MiB for dit_int8.gguf.

ASR Check

The common transcript content matched the main spoken prompt: Tiny Big Questions, coffee/caffeine/productivity, notes/exclamation marks/croissant, ritual/cup, starting line, and parking. ASR made small recognition errors such as coffee -> cocky and several variants of croissant, but none of the six outputs collapsed into noise.

30s DiT Step Sweep

These sweeps used CUDA server mode, threads=8, num_frames=721, height=32, width=32, guidance_scale=1.0, and seed=20260808. The prompt was a plain quoted reading passage sized for the 30s target. Framework Nemotron ASR (nemotron_asr) was used for the transcript check, and WER is computed against the quoted passage after simple lowercase alphanumeric token normalization.

dit.gguf, dit_acceleration=none:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Nemotron ASR WER
4	6937.46	30.675	0.2262	4.42x	100.0%
8	9410.08	30.675	0.3068	3.26x	39.1%
12	12090.60	30.675	0.3942	2.54x	1.6%
16	14629.50	30.675	0.4769	2.10x	1.6%
20	17213.50	30.675	0.5612	1.78x	1.6%
24	20091.70	30.675	0.6550	1.53x	1.6%

dit.gguf, dit_acceleration=spectrum:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Nemotron ASR WER
4	6320.38	30.675	0.2060	4.85x	100.0%
8	7080.35	30.675	0.2308	4.33x	100.0%
12	7720.13	30.675	0.2517	3.97x	1.6%
16	8479.36	30.675	0.2764	3.62x	4.7%
20	9270.63	30.675	0.3022	3.31x	6.2%
24	9916.69	30.675	0.3233	3.09x	3.1%

dit.gguf, dit_acceleration=first_block_cache:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Nemotron ASR WER
4	6801.17	30.675	0.2217	4.51x	100.0%
8	9685.66	30.675	0.3158	3.17x	39.1%
12	9546.81	30.675	0.3112	3.21x	18.8%
16	10860.90	30.675	0.3541	2.82x	4.7%
20	11016.10	30.675	0.3591	2.78x	1.6%
24	11726.50	30.675	0.3823	2.62x	6.2%

dit_int8.gguf, dit_acceleration=none:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Nemotron ASR WER
4	6752.33	30.675	0.2201	4.54x	56.2%
8	8822.52	30.675	0.2876	3.48x	4.7%
12	11036.60	30.675	0.3598	2.78x	3.1%
16	13253.00	30.675	0.4320	2.31x	3.1%
20	15373.80	30.675	0.5012	2.00x	3.1%
24	17600.10	30.675	0.5738	1.74x	3.1%

dit_int8.gguf, dit_acceleration=spectrum:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Nemotron ASR WER
4	6343.60	30.675	0.2068	4.84x	100.0%
8	6960.58	30.675	0.2269	4.41x	51.6%
12	7520.18	30.675	0.2452	4.08x	12.5%
16	8187.32	30.675	0.2669	3.75x	10.9%
20	8783.71	30.675	0.2863	3.49x	3.1%
24	9488.47	30.675	0.3093	3.23x	3.1%

dit_int8.gguf, dit_acceleration=first_block_cache:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Nemotron ASR WER
4	6849.84	30.675	0.2233	4.48x	56.2%
8	8927.28	30.675	0.2910	3.44x	4.7%
12	8973.95	30.675	0.2925	3.42x	21.9%
16	10095.00	30.675	0.3291	3.04x	12.5%
20	10259.20	30.675	0.3345	2.99x	45.3%
24	10916.50	30.675	0.3559	2.81x	1.6%

In this 30s reading case, the fastest stable measured point was dit.gguf + spectrum at 12 steps. The normal DiT path also reached stable ASR at 12 steps, but with higher RTF. INT8 without acceleration was transcript-stable by roughly 8-12 steps, while INT8 + first_block_cache needed 24 steps in this run.

CUDA 13 Server Sweep

This sweep reran the 30s reading case in CUDA 13 server mode with dit_acceleration=none. It used the same threads=8, num_frames=721, height=32, width=32, guidance_scale=1.0, seed, prompt, and short warmup shape as the CUDA 12.9 server rows above.

dit.gguf, CUDA 13:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Gain vs CUDA 12.9
4	6901.74	30.675	0.2250	4.44x	+0.5%
8	9434.47	30.675	0.3076	3.25x	-0.3%
12	11973.10	30.675	0.3903	2.56x	+1.0%
16	14506.40	30.675	0.4729	2.11x	+0.8%
20	17244.20	30.675	0.5622	1.78x	-0.2%
24	19856.10	30.675	0.6473	1.54x	+1.2%

dit_int8.gguf, CUDA 13:

DiT steps	Wall ms	Audio sec	RTF	x realtime	Gain vs CUDA 12.9
4	6871.01	30.675	0.2240	4.46x	-1.8%
8	8815.82	30.675	0.2874	3.48x	+0.1%
12	10860.00	30.675	0.3540	2.82x	+1.6%
16	13167.40	30.675	0.4293	2.33x	+0.6%
20	15081.60	30.675	0.4917	2.03x	+1.9%
24	17179.80	30.675	0.5601	1.79x	+2.4%

For this no-acceleration server sweep, CUDA 13 was a small improvement rather than a large one: total wall time across the six measured step counts improved by about 0.6% for dit.gguf and about 1.2% for dit_int8.gguf. The INT8 path showed the clearest gain at larger step counts.

Memory-Reduction Options

These runs used dit.gguf only, server mode, CUDA, threads=8, no detailed server logging, the same short warmup shape, and the same measured prompt/options as the 2x3 run above. Each option set used a fresh server process. The baseline is the dit.gguf + dit_acceleration=none row above, where minimax_h3.mem_saver is already at its default true.

Option set	Wall ms	RTF	Peak VRAM MiB	Peak delta vs baseline	ASR status
baseline: mem_saver=true	12886.40	0.6427	16513	baseline	valid
mem_saver=true, dit_layerwise=true, dit_layerwise_batch=4	56154.80	2.8007	15796	-717 MiB	valid
mem_saver=true, dit_layerwise=true, dit_layerwise_batch=4, dit_mlp_chunk_tokens=1024	56460.30	2.8160	15661	-852 MiB	valid

DiT layerwise staging reduced peak VRAM by roughly 0.7-0.9 GiB, but with a large runtime cost. The MLP chunking option gave the lowest measured peak in this run.

Audio Duration Scaling

These runs used dit.gguf, default minimax_h3.mem_saver=true, dit_acceleration=none, CUDA server mode, threads=8, no detailed server logging, and one short warmup before the measured duration sweep. The prompt and all generation options other than num_frames were unchanged.

Target sec	num_frames	Output sec	Wall ms	RTF	Peak VRAM MiB
5	121	5.175	7076.73	1.3675	16246
10	241	10.125	8905.27	0.8795	16366
15	361	15.075	10754.00	0.7134	16530
20	481	20.050	13046.70	0.6507	16559
25	601	25.700	15272.80	0.5943	16702
30	721	30.675	17704.70	0.5772	16830
60	1441	60.425	34435.90	0.5699	17674

With mem_saver=true, peak VRAM increased slowly across this audio-only sweep: about 1.4 GiB from the 5-second request to the 60-second request. Runtime scales more visibly than memory, while RTF improves as fixed request overhead is amortized over longer audio.