# Gradient Checkpointing Trade-off Lab: Compressing Memory by Crediting Compute

> Source: https://sukruyusufkaya.com/en/learn/fine-tuning-cookbook/ftc-gradient-checkpointing-tradeoff-lab
> Updated: 2026-06-25T20:48:19.202Z
> Category: Fine-Tuning Cookbook (Model-by-Model)
> Module: Part I — Hardware & Memory Engineering
**TLDR:** Decision tree for gradient checkpointing: per-layer, segment-based, custom selective? Re-entrant vs non-re-entrant difference, torch.utils.checkpoint vs HF Trainer kwargs, selective checkpointing. 5-strategy bench on RTX 4090 + Llama 3.1 8B.