debru · AI images

SDXL Turbo: an image in half a second

October 4, 2026

SDXL Turbo is a distilled version of SDXL that can generate in 1–4 steps with no CFG (guidance 0). The price is 512×512 resolution and a bit less control. I tried it on a simple prompt: a red tram on a hilly street of an old European city.

a red tram on a hilly street of an old european city, sunny afternoon, photo
Turbo
a red tram on a hilly street of an old european city, sunny afternoon, photo
1 step — 0.5 s
a red tram on a hilly street of an old european city, sunny afternoon, photo
Turbo
  • 1 step — I was honestly surprised: tram, street, shadows, everything's there. Details are mushy, but good enough to explore an idea.
  • 4 steps — noticeably more detail, pedestrians appeared, deeper perspective.
  • Regular SDXL — 1024×1024, many more small things (wires, cobblestones, hills in the back), but 10–30 times slower.

How I use it

Turbo became my “sketchpad”: in a minute I can go through a hundred seeds and phrasings and see where a prompt is heading. Then I finish the variant I like on full SDXL. The image won't repeat one-to-one (they're different models), but composition and mood usually carry over.

Timings on an RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, excluding model loading.