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text model · DeepSeek-R1-Distill · Windows

Can I run DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B on Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB)?

Compatibility verdict VRAM threshold engine
No, not enough memory would not load

No. DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B needs ~22.1 GB even at Q4_K_M, but Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB) only has ~11 GB usable.

Needs ~22.1 GB Device usable ~11 GB

Needs ~22.1 GB even at Q4_K_M, but only ~11 GB is usable.

That figure is at a 4k context and moves about ±15% as context length changes.

The gap is about 11.1 GB: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B needs roughly 22.1 GB at Q4_K_M and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB) leaves only about 11 GB usable for a model. The lightest tracked hardware that runs DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB) at 24 GB. See DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B on Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB).

Too big for Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB)'s VRAM, but you could offload some layers to system RAM and still run it at roughly ~3 tok/s, far slower than a model that fits. How this is estimated.

Q4_K_M needed
~22.1 GB
Usable on device
~11 GB
Device memory
12 GB
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Which quant fits

Quant ladder vs ~11 GB usable
Q2_K
~15.6 GB
Q3_K_M
~17.8 GB
Q4_K_M
~22.1 GB
Q5_K_M
~25 GB
Q6_K
~28.4 GB
Q8_0
~37 GB
FP16
~66.2 GB
The line marks Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB)'s ~11 GB budget; rungs past it are too large.
Model DeepSeek-R1-Distill
Parameters
32B
Q4_K_M size
19.85 GB
Q8_0 size
34.82 GB
Context
128k
Ollama tag
deepseek-r1:32b
Full DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B requirements →
Device Windows
Memory
12 GB vram
Usable for weights
~11 GB
Power draw
~200 W
Best runtime
Ollama (CUDA) / vLLM (Linux)
Best models for Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB) →

What you can run instead

Run DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B on other hardware

FAQ

Can Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB) run DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B?

No. DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B needs ~22.1 GB even at Q4_K_M, but Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB) only has ~11 GB usable.

How much memory does DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B need?

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB) does not have enough memory. At Q4_K_M the weights are ~19.85 GB; with KV cache and runtime overhead, budget ~22.1 GB at a 4k context.

What is the best tool to run DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen 32B on Windows?

LM Studio for a simple setup; Ollama (CUDA) for the most speed. AMD GPUs run via Vulkan/ROCm at roughly half CUDA throughput. NVIDIA is the smooth path on Windows.

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Sources

Weights are measured from GGUF files; KV cache and overhead are computed, so totals can vary ~15% with context and runtime. Any tok/s is a bandwidth estimate. See methodology.