BF16 vs NVFP4 with Nemotron 3.5 Lightning

NVIDIA Developer
3,467 views September 14, 2026

Learn how NVFP4 compares to BF16 in practice, why the smaller checkpoint frees up GPU memory without a big quality hit, and where each format still makes the most sense. Using Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, which ships as both a BF16 and an NVFP4 checkpoint, we look at memory footprint, throughput, and accuracy, then walk through a notebook that runs the whole comparison on a single H100 so you can reproduce these results. What Is NVFP4?: https://youtu.be/UTfg-_EGurw?si=8V9kG1AJi4O4NIFB Notebook: https://github.com/patelmiteshn/inference-cookbooks/blob/main/examples/nvfp4_vs_bf16.ipynb

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