# Can I run DeepSeek R1 on Apple M1 (8GB)?

> **No, not enough memory.** Needs ~383.7 GB even at Q4_K_M, but only ~5.5 GB is usable.

Last validated: 2026-06-15.

## Memory math
- DeepSeek R1: 671B (MoE, 37B active); Q4_K_M weighs 376.66 GB on disk.
- At Q4_K_M with a 4k context it needs ~383.7 GB (weights + KV cache + ~0.8 GB runtime overhead, ±15% with context length).
- Apple M1 (8GB): 8 GB unified, ~5.5 GB usable for model weights.
- Headroom: ~-378.2 GB.

## How to run
Recommended quant: n/a. Best tool on macOS: LM Studio.

```sh
ollama run deepseek-r1:671b
```

## Other models that run on Apple M1 (8GB)
- [Gemma 3 4B (4B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/gemma-3-4b/apple-m1-8gb)
- [Qwen3 4B (4B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/qwen3-4b/apple-m1-8gb)
- [Phi-3.5-mini 3.8B (3.82B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/phi-3.5-mini/apple-m1-8gb)
- [Phi-4-mini 3.8B (3.8B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/phi-4-mini-3.8b/apple-m1-8gb)
- [Qwen2.5-VL 3B (3.75B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/qwen2.5-vl-3b/apple-m1-8gb)
- [Qwen2.5 3B (3.09B)](https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/qwen2.5-3b/apple-m1-8gb)

Estimate, not a guarantee. Sources: https://ollama.com/library/deepseek-r1, https://ollama.com/library/deepseek-r1/tags, https://huggingface.co/unsloth/DeepSeek-R1-GGUF, https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1.
More: https://localmodel.run/can-i-run/deepseek-r1/apple-m1-8gb