Can a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 run DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B)?
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 has 10GB VRAM. Here's exactly whichprecision (FP16, FP8, GGUF)of DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B) fits and how smoothly it runs.
Too much for this GPU
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB) doesn't have enough VRAM for DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B) even at its smallest size (41.9GB needed). Rent a cloud GPU or step up to a bigger card.
41.9GB
smallest fit on this GPU
Run it in the cloud instead
A 24GB RTX 4090 instance runs DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B) at full quality, starting at pennies/hour.
Disclosure: Cloud provider links are referrals at no additional cost to you.
DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B) variants on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
| Variant | Precision | Size | Total VRAM needed | Headroom | Fits? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M (4-bit Recommended)REC | q4_k_m | 41.9GB | 41.9GB | -31.9GB | ✗ OOM |
| Q8_0 (8-bit GGUF) | q8_0 | 78.8GB | 78.8GB | -68.8GB | ✗ OOM |
| FP16 (Uncompressed) | fp16 | 147.7GB | 147.7GB | -137.7GB | ✗ OOM |
"Total VRAM needed" = variant size + 0.0GB estimated text-encoder/VAE overhead. Headroom = GPU VRAM (10GB) − total needed. Green ≥ 1.5GB headroom; Red ≤ −2GB (will OOM).
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 at a glance
VRAM
10GB
Est. price
$649
Best for
141.2GB DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B) and lighter
Other models on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
FLUX.1 DevFLUX.1 SchnellStable Diffusion XL (SDXL)Stable Diffusion 1.5Stable Diffusion 3 (SD3)Hunyuan VideoWan 2.1 VideoPony DiffusionLlama 3.2 (1B)Llama 3.2 (3B)Llama 3 / 3.1 (8B)DeepSeek-R1 Distill Qwen (7B)
Other GPUs for DeepSeek-R1 Distill Llama (70B)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (12GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (12GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (16GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 (24GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (24GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (16GB) (16GB)NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (4GB)NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (8GB)Apple MacBook Pro (M3 Max) (36GB)